It is hard to commit fraud when responding to surveys, so it’s either biased sampling or we are doomed. If 44% (+/- margin of error) are ready to vote for the idiots - then we ARE doomed and deserving it.
Some very important points to remember when considering the veracity of these polls.
1. This and any other survey assumes the person being called is really of any party affiliation which is a subset of considering which ones are chosen for the publicly published sample.
2. Not to accuse Rasmussen, but consider every vote is in a database. I can setup a routine from a database for a predictable result by actually sampling 2500 people, assuming their party affiliation is true, and running the routine to find the correct number of each party on a percentage basis who answered the question a certain way with a selected total of 500 as what this sample is numbered.
3. First and foremost, Polling COMPANIES (key word here) are in the business of selling polling to those who are looking to either find the truth or as in many cases, create a result to make news in an effort effect public opinion, not to find it. This is why there are such differences with internal polling which we never hear about since the owner of the results are the ones who payed for it. Likewise, those that are made public are most often commissioned to create news in an effort to sway public opinion.
With all due respect to the doomsdaysayers. . .if you are an incumbent and at this stage you are below 50%, then you are in real, solid trouble. Mandel is not going to get weaker in this race and as he becomes better known will only get stronger. I am not saying it is a sure win for the Republicans. But I am saying that it is not even close to the “give up hope” column.