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Rasmussen Reports polls get the election really, really wrong
examiner.com ^ | Nov 7 2012 | By: Ryan Witt

Posted on 11/07/2012 3:13:40 PM PST by NoLibZone

For the past year conservatives have put their trust in one pollster and one pollster alone. While nearly every other pollster showed President Obama leading throughout the last year’s presidential race, Rasmussen Reports consistently showed better numbers for Romney, and had Romney leading through much of the last month. Conservative pundits claimed that Rasmussen was the only pollster showing the true state of the race, even though previous studies suggested that Rasmussen’s numbers actually leaned too far to the right in previous elections. The Election Day results are now in, and Rasmussen was not only off in their projection, but far off in many cases. Consider the following numbers:

Rasmussen’s last national poll had Romney with a one point lead (49 percent to 48 percent). Obama ended up winning by two points (50 percent to 48 percent). Rasmussen had Romney winning Virginia by two points (50 percent to 48 percent). With 97 percent of precincts reporting Obama is winning Virginia by three points (51 percent to 48 percent). Rasmussen Reports final Iowa poll had Romney winning the state by one point (49 percent to 48 percent). With 96 percent of precincts reporting Obama is winning Iowa by six points (52 percent to 46 percent). Rasmussen had Romney and Obama tied at 49 percent in Wisconsin. With 98 percent of precincts reporting Obama is currently winning Wisconsin by seven points (53 percent to 46 percent). In Colorado, Rasmussen Reports had Romney winning by three points (50 percent to 47 percent). With 90 percent of precincts reporting Obama is winning Colorado by four points (51 percent to 47 percent). In Ohio, Rasmussen Reports had the race tied at 49 percent. With 90 percent of precincts reporting Obama is currently winning the state by two points (50 percent to 48 percent).

(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012poll; poll2012; rasmussen
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To: Joshua
2008 Obama 69 million votes, McCain 59 Million

2012 obama 60 Million votes, Romney 57 Million Numbers show both sides stayed home

This means that 15% of Democrats stayed home vs. 3.4% Republicans.

So, it's about the only thing that went well last night.

21 posted on 11/07/2012 4:44:22 PM PST by cicero2k
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To: NoLibZone

One cannot poll hacked voting machines in blue districts. This will likely be the untold story of the election.

Ras just on foxnews talking how amazed he was that Obama’s team knew precisely how the white vote would go. Of course they would know, they hacked the machines.


22 posted on 11/07/2012 5:25:43 PM PST by AdamBomb
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To: Kenny

Based on 2008 total votes cast, 14 million voters stayed home. About 10 million for BHO, 4m for Romney.

If you include normal population growth it gets worse.

12 to 14 million for BHO

6 to 8 million for R.

Of the 220m or so eligible voters in the US, 117m cast ballots (60%) in 2012, In 2008 62% of eligible voters (131m) cast a ballot. The electorate shrank, again, also back to 2004 levels.

I can not believe Romney did worse the McCain in total voter turn out. Even if he had McCains 59.5m votes, Romney still loses bu a nose.

I would have (and did) bet the farm that Republican voter turn out would have been up, not down.

Very sad.


23 posted on 11/07/2012 5:29:26 PM PST by JimBianchi11 (The 2A is the cornerstone of our free society. Those that don't support it, oppose it.)
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To: Arthurio
Maybe he got it exactly right, but failed to take into account Democrat election fraud?

My thoughts exactly!

It's hard to statistically account for massive election fraud.

24 posted on 11/08/2012 6:43:39 AM PST by TChris ("Hello", the politician lied.)
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To: xzins; Arthurio; P-Marlowe
Election fraud?

Rush Limbaugh rejected that explanation today. He basically said it was impossible to prove and there were other reasons that better explained the loss.

Good for him. But he's still wrong.

Let's face it - there is a MASSIVE disconnect between what every single piece of data was saying would happen, and what actually happened.

Either I can accept that math has just suddenly stopped working like it should, or else I can accept that there was massive amounts of fraud going on.

Sorry, xzins, but there is no way that this was truly a D+11 election, and the GOP still keep up its numbers and control of the House. There's not way this was a D+11 and Obama lose ten million votes from his 2008 level. There's no way this was a D+11 vote, and Obama lose EVs and percentage of the popular vote. Even IF Republicans did sit this one out, these numbers still don't jibe.

Another thing to consider - at the same time that Romney and Senate candidates in certain swing states were losing their races, House Republicans were holding their own, and the GOP even picked up seats in many state legislatures.

A disconnect?

Not really. It's simply easier to defraud a statewide race than it is to defraud a more local election like a house district or some district in a state legislature.

What happens in one or two big cities can affect a statewide race, but won't affect what happens in some smaller district across the state, in some suburban or rural area. Packing thousands of marked ballots into the machines in Philly - or simply rigging your machines to delete GOP votes in Detroit - won't affect what happens in Centre County, PA or in the UP, electionwise, but WILL affect who wins the state's EVs in the Presidential race, or who wins the Senate seat.

Rush is right about one thing - you'll never be able to prove it, since there's no way the Obama administration would ever investigate its own party for fraudulent behaviour.

But still, I can believe that math still works or that it no longer works. Guess which I'm going with.

25 posted on 11/08/2012 9:21:39 AM PST by Yashcheritsiy (It's time to make Obama a minor footnote in the pages of history)
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To: JimBianchi11; xzins; Arthurio; P-Marlowe
I would have (and did) bet the farm that Republican voter turn out would have been up, not down.

That's just it - throughout the day, in several of the swing states, there were those little electronic reports showing that GOP turnout (measured in terms of who is actually showing up, having their bar code read, and being signed in as having voted) was up, and Dem turnout was down, both in direct comparison to each other, and versus the numbers in 2008.

And then we wake up to find out that 3.5 million or more Republicans didn't vote, including in a lot of the swing states?

No. I don't accept that this is just some fluke, or that the official numbers of voters was somehow uniformly wrong. Not when EVERY OTHER piece of data - from the polls, to the measures of partisan affiliation, to the measures of relative enthusiasm, to the way independents and white voters were going, and many more pieces - were pointing to the exact same thing.

Asking me to discount all of this is like telling me that, hey, that theory of gravity thing works almost all of the time, but in this one case, you're just going to have to accept that iron bars can float up into the air on their own accord.

No. Not buying it. This election was defrauded. It was defrauded in a major way.

26 posted on 11/08/2012 9:33:25 AM PST by Yashcheritsiy (It's time to make Obama a minor footnote in the pages of history)
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To: Yashcheritsiy; xzins; Arthurio; wmfights

All those machines changing votes from Romney to Obama with no investigation whatsoever? How many times did it occur tuesday or before? How many dead people voted? How many illegal aliens voted? How many times did people vote 5 times in different jurisdictions? It has to add up to enough votes to swing any swing state.

I think we need to abolish all electronic voting methods, eliminate all early voting and require everyone to vote in person with a valid government issued ID on election day.

But that will never happen so rampant voter fraud is here to stay. Democrats will cheat because government is their religion. Republican operatives will say nothing because appeasement is their modus operandi.

Eventually there will be blood. The government is eliminating all other options.


27 posted on 11/08/2012 11:08:22 AM PST by P-Marlowe (There can be no Victory without a fight and no battle without wounds.)
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To: P-Marlowe; Yashcheritsiy; xzins; Arthurio; wmfights
I think we need to abolish all electronic voting methods, eliminate all early voting and require everyone to vote in person with a valid government issued ID on election day.

Amen!!!!!

My wife volunteered me to be an election judge with her. A couple observations:

At least 80% of the voters came in with their drivers license in hand.

To vote we had books with each person on a separate page and I would tear out half, they signed it and then I was supposed to check their signature. If the signature matched the signature on file on the other half of the sheet the voter than got the ballot. A lot of signatures did not match up, but were close. If the signature is contested the proceedure is to have them fill out a form and they still get a regular ballot.

IOW, if you have a list of names in each precinct you can go from polling place to polling place voting and the worst that will happen is your signature will be challenged, but your vote will still count!

If someone came in and they were not in the book, but were listed on a sheet for all registered voters in the precinct they filled out a form and we gave them a provisional ballot. A politician came in late in the day and had a fit saying they should be getting a regular ballot. The person would not have a sheet in the book because the card confirming that they still lived at that address had been returned to the board of elections. Another great big gap in the system!

My experience was eye opening. The people I worked with were nice enough and I believe if we were told you have to check ID they would do it and the voters would have no problem producing it. The biggest hole in the system has to be with absentee ballots and early voting, but it would be pretty easy to manufacture votes on election day as it is now.

28 posted on 11/08/2012 3:31:59 PM PST by wmfights
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To: Yashcheritsiy; P-Marlowe
Hi Yash, there are some things I proceed cautiously with, so that's what I'll do here.

Sorry, xzins, but there is no way that this was truly a D+11 election, and the GOP still keep up its numbers and control of the House.

First, I heard some commentators claiming it was a D+6 election not a D+11. I think Obama won by about 3 million votes. National election was about 60.2 million for Obama and 57.5 million for Romney. That makes it less than D+1 in reality. For every 57.5 republicans, you have 60.2 Democrats. For every 100 republicans you have 105 democrats. For every million Romney supporters you have 1,050,000 Obama supporters. If you multiply 57.5 times 1,050,000, you'll see it works out to 60.2 million.

Do the math: 57.5 is to 60.2 as 1 million is to X.

So, there's more than enough room there for Republicans to retain the House.

29 posted on 11/08/2012 5:39:10 PM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! True supporters of our troops pray for their victory!)
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To: AdamBomb

This still wouldn’t account for the exit polling. Ras was just wrong as were a lot of people. Gallup, the UoC people, Barone, all wrong.


30 posted on 11/08/2012 5:48:57 PM PST by garbanzo (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine)
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To: AdamBomb

What are you talking about? The white vote percentage comes from exit polls, not a vote machine tally. Did theObama campaign hack the exit polls?

There were good freepers here for weeks warnjng people that the polls looked bad. Even Rasmussen didnt have Romney winning at the state level (more of a pure tossup). But people here shouted them down and pointed to unskewed polls and Barone and Dick FREAKING Morris and said it was all won.

This machine hacking plot straight from the braindead KosKids of 2004 is just yet another attempt to deny the reality of Romney’s failure. We need to confront REALITY. Here is some...Romneys vanuted GOTV Orca app was a complete failure. If you want to exlpain bad turnout there’s a good place to start.


31 posted on 11/09/2012 4:07:13 AM PST by SpekeParrot
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To: Yashcheritsiy

Massive disconnect? Not really. EVERY poll aggregator including Nate Silver, Real Clear Polititcs, Electoral-Vote, TPM polltracker, and just the state level polls themselves showed a clear Obama victory. MEANWHILE, Dean Chambers of unskewed polls...a guy with zero expertise in polling or statistics...had Romney. Karl Rove, the head of Romney’s biggest superpac, had Romney...but only because he gave states to R that his own map showed slightly favored Obama.

The most favorable Romney pollster, Ras, had it a tossup.

Face it...the “Math” was on their side. Dick Morris and George Will were on ours. We should have seen it coming. A viote fraud claim doesnt make too much sense when the outcome aligned perfectly with what was predicted by dozens of pollsters, poll aggregators, and the exit polls themselves.


32 posted on 11/09/2012 4:07:22 AM PST by SpekeParrot
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To: xzins

As for the House, Gerrymandering on both sides as made the body far more resistant to change. The democrats won the house level popular vote by a similar margin to Obama, but a lot of those votes on both sides are going to safe districts. Basically, with an earlier district map, Dems would have had a good chance there too.

Please...lets deal with reality.


33 posted on 11/09/2012 4:07:46 AM PST by SpekeParrot
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To: SpekeParrot

See #29. I aligned with the vote totals, too. There really isn’t anything remarkable in 60.2 versus 57.5 millions. That’s around a 3 million vote difference. That’s only 5 more Obama voters per 100 republicans.

It would make more sense to be saying that no votes were added to Obama but that Romney votes weren’t counted.


34 posted on 11/09/2012 8:18:50 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! True supporters of our troops pray for their victory!)
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To: SpekeParrot

Sorry, but no. The state level polling in the final week was actually favouring Romney in the swing states. Most of the professional polling houses had Romney statistically tied or slightly ahead in iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, etc.

Frankly, I’m still not sure where people are getting this idea that “the state level polling” had Obama ahead. It did not. MSM state level polling had it ahead - using a partisan turnout model that was grossly unrealistic, and in fact, is STILL grossly unrealistic when you consider the actual results. A D+7 - D +11 turnout would have safely handed the House back to the Dems, as well as giving Obama a lot more than a 2% PV win, while losing a couple of states that he won last time.

No - the math is NOT working out. Or else, I guess we just accept that polling houses like Gallup and Rasmussen, with decades long track records of good accuracy, suddenly have stopped being able to do basic statistics.


35 posted on 11/09/2012 9:37:18 AM PST by Yashcheritsiy (It's time to make Obama a minor footnote in the pages of history)
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To: Yashcheritsiy

I believe a good number of voters broke from Romney to Obama in the last two weeks.....One reason was because the media starting painting a rosy picture of the economy, and then Fatso sealed the deal.


36 posted on 11/09/2012 9:40:07 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: xzins
So, there's more than enough room there for Republicans to retain the House.

Nope - even if this were a genuine D+6 election (like, say, 2006 was), the GOP would have lost the House, most likely, because that's what happened the LAST time we had a D+6 election.

Sorry, but the missing 3 million Romney votes are missing due to fraud.

I know that as a third party guy, you have a vested interest in trying to pin it on "Well, people just didn't like Romney enough to turn out" - but the problem is, none of the indicators suggested that to really be true. Even the Democrats were afraid they were going to lose.

37 posted on 11/09/2012 9:41:40 AM PST by Yashcheritsiy (It's time to make Obama a minor footnote in the pages of history)
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To: dfwgator

That’s a possibility. Not so much about the economy, since the MSM had been painting that rosy picture throughout. I DO believe there was a break towards Obama that final week, based on Hurricane Sandy and the wholly undeserved credit he was getting as a “leader” due to it.

However, the numbers still aren’t adding up. You don’t have a D+7 to D+11 election when your top of the ticket loses 9.7 million votes over last time, and has a closer race than he did in elections that actually WERE D+7. In fact, the indicators we were all seeing basically said that Obama was going to lose about 8-10% of his vote - which was accurately predicted.

I just find it odd that all the things about this election that weren’t relatively susceptible to vote fraud seemed to have been predicted accurately, while the things that were more susceptible to vote fraud weren’t predicted accurately. I’m seeing a common thread between the two.


38 posted on 11/09/2012 9:46:53 AM PST by Yashcheritsiy (It's time to make Obama a minor footnote in the pages of history)
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To: Yashcheritsiy; P-Marlowe

What I’m saying Yash is that the numbers don’t support it being a D+6 election. If Obama had 60.2 and Romney had 57.5, that totals 117.7 million. Let’s call it 118 million to accomodate 3rd parties. That means Obama had 51 percent and that means Romney had 48 percent and that means 51-48 = 3. That makes it D+3 at the most.

Romney did not expect to get seniors. Then we were hearing that Romney was getting seniors. Seniors sat it out this time. They young people who were supposed to be apathetic did turn out.

As I said earlier, the difference is only 50,000 out of every million voters. There is plenty of room there for Republicans to win the House.


39 posted on 11/09/2012 3:57:12 PM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! True supporters of our troops pray for their victory!)
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To: Yashcheritsiy

The idea that the state level polling favored Romney is pure fiction. This is verifiable. Just go to RCP and see for yourself. The only pollster who saw a tossup in the swing states was Ras....and that is the whole point of the article. He was the outlier and he was dead wrong...in large part because he fiddled with Party ID while other pollsters just went on how their participants self identified for party ID. The fact is that the polls in aggregate were right, moreso than any individual posllster and certainly moreso than outliers like Gallup and Ras. Pretending otherwise is merely continuing the pattern of denialism that resulted in Romney himself and almost everyone here being shocked at a highly predictable outcome.

By the way, you could go back and “unskew” those state polls...Ras included...to D+6 and they would all show Obama winning, so I am still not sure what your beef is with them. Why slam the pollsters and aggregators like Nate Silver—who nailed everything including popular vote just by aggregating state and national polls—when we should have knives out for the guys who blew it? Zogby was dead to the leftists after 2004...Rasmussen deserves the same.


40 posted on 11/10/2012 8:00:23 AM PST by SpekeParrot
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