Rasmussen SUNDAY Poll

Rasmussen Reports ^

[Turk82_1]

Sunday September 05, 2004--The Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows President George W. Bush with 48% of the vote and Senator John Kerry with 46%. The Tracking Poll is updated daily by noon Eastern. Two-thirds of the interview for today's report were completed after the President's speech on Thursday night.

Over the past nine days, Bush has been ahead eight times and the candidates have been tied once. Senator Kerry has not been ahead in the Tracking Poll since August 23.

[trek]

"I don't understand their numbers, they sure don't change much even as all the rest change drastically.:

Polls right now mostly reflect the news cycle. Here is the most accurate poll I've seen.

In a 3 way race between President Bush, Senator Kerry and Hurricane Frances:

• Bush 22%
• Kerry 18%
• Frances 60%

With a margin of error of 3%

[Good.V.Evil]

Newsweek has it 54 to 43 Pres. Bush!

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-04-2004/0002244238&EDATE=

[kesg]

A little more about his 2000 disaster, pls. Rasmussen seems very tilted towards the Dems....a lot like ole Z.

In 2000, Rasmussen had Bush substantially leading Gore on the night before the election. IIRC it was more than five points. During the weekend before the election, when all the other polls showed Gore closing fast in the wake of the DUI story, Rasmussen had Bush pulling away.

Anyway, it is strange that he is not picking up the huge movement to Bush that the other polls -- as well as both campaigns -- are picking up.

[Josh in PA]

A 12 point overnight swing is hard to beleive since I do not believe there are many swayables or undecided out there.

====

Why not? Because the media told you there wasn't?

There was a large percentage of independants who voted for Bush in 2000, that were disenchanted with him so far this year. It's very very probably that he won them over last week.

[Rokke]

I show the last three days worth of raw data to be 48-51-44 for Bush and 45-45-49 for Kerry. Bush's 51% number represents the first day of polling after his speech. His 44% number is from yesterday. Sooooo, if Rasmussen's polling data is correct, something must have happened between Friday and Saturday that significantly hurt Bush, and significantly helped Kerry. To my mind, nothing did. So let's look at another option. Looking at past data, Bush polls terribly on Sunday's in Rasmussen's raw data. This weekend he's polled terribly on Saturday. This is Labor day weekend, and I just heard on the radio more people are on the road this Labor day weekend than last year. To determine whether Labor Day polling is a factor, I think I will wait until Thursday's Rasmussen numbers to determine whether his poll shows a Bush bounce.

[JohnnyZ]

Not even mentioning the cost of the phone calls, but the cost of employees to conduct all of these calls.

I don't think anyone conducts the calls; it's an automated telephone system.

[Illinois Rep]

Correct me if I'm wrong...but isn't Scott Rasmussen the founder of ESPN?

I also believe he is a Republican (calls himself and independent). Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh all tout Rasmussen as being a fair pollster (unlike the bias you get with Zogby who leans heavily and proudly Democrat).

Rasmussen may be playing a different game. With a 10 point Bush lead what is the likely direction it can go? Up? hardly...Down? You bet. So he is keeping it modest and any movement will be seen as upward movement and not downward movement.

Who's to say pollsters don't already have their desired polling numbers for each week of the election...Imagine if Rasmussen planned to release numbers like this

Week 1 Sept Bush up 2
Week 2 Sept Bush up 2
Week 3 Sept Bush up 3
Week 3 Sept Bush up 3
Week 1 Oct Bush up 3
Week 2 Oct Bush up 4
Week 3 Oct Bush up 5
Week 4 Oct Bush up 6

You get bandwagon voteres to vote for your guy all the while not falling out of the other polling outfits numbers in a drastic way.

Make sense?

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Background of Selective Service
(Source: Selective Service System - June 25, 2001 revision)

For more than 50 years, Selective Service and the registration requirement for America's young men have served as a backup system to provide manpower to the U.S. Armed Forces.

President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 which created the country's first peacetime draft and formally established the Selective Service System as an independent Federal agency.

From 1948 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means.

In 1973, the draft ended and the U.S. converted to an All-Volunteer military.

The registration requirement was suspended in April 1975. It was resumed again in 1980 by President Carter in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Registration continues today as a hedge against underestimating the number of servicemen needed in a future crisis.

The obligation of a man to register is imposed by the Military Selective Service Act. The Act establishes and governs the operations of the Selective Service System.

(Source: Selective Service System - June 25, 2001 revision)

[Josh in PA]

Rokke..

I've spoken with a guy who is a polling director of a pretty big polling firm.

He said they are not starting any post-convention polling until Tuesday.

I feel they may be on the correct path here.

[Josh in PA]

Yes.. It makes perfect sense with my theory that he is manipulating the numbers.

[Turk82_1]

"outlier" is a gerneralized term in Statistics and Analysis. (and you thought only geek Engineers and Math majorsbothered with that).

An outlier poll is one that does not run close to the norm of the others. An outlier weather model (like the GFS for Ivan, see http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT4+shtml/051426.shtml?) is one that is so variant with the rest of the models that it does not make sense.

What folks are saying here is that, with two polls showing a BIG bounce (Times and NewsWEAK) and possibly SurveyUSA, too, and Rasmussen showing a small and shrinking one, that Ras is the 'oulier'.

[True_wesT]

Only polls with likely voters are worth reading. There are alot of people out there with an opinion who have no intention to vote.

The majority of undecided voters don't hate Bush. That's why they're undecided. The genuine emotion that the President showed in the second half of his speech belies the DNC charge that he is a liar and a war profiteer.

And don't forget the Vietnam Vets rally in Washington next week. That will further damage Kerry. It will be impossible for Kerry to dismiss them as liars.

[kstewskis]

Is it true Jane Fonda is coming out to?

This is one time I wished Jane Fonda was one of those Hollywood commie-liberals who can't keep their mouths shut, would "come out" in support of Kerry.

Talk about dropping napalm on the village (idiot).

[Mo1]

From 1948 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means.

Sooo .. correct me if I'm wrong .. when Kerry went off to college in the early 60's .. even though it was a period of peactime he technically dodged the draft?

[Illinois Rep]

I feel the true numbers are somewhere between Rasmussen and Newsweek or Time.

The Democrats wouldn't be demanding Kerry get tough in this campaign and start making forward movement if Rasmussen was accurate.

Also Rasmussen wouldn't show Bush taking a 4 point lead in battleground states...basically an 8 point turnaround in the swing states yet only leading nationally by 2 points. Doesn't make sense

[Illinois Rep]

also it seems Rasmussen, even though his numbers are the most current, lags behind the rest of the polling outfits with trends.

[kesg]

Rasmussen weights his samples using a 39% Dem 35% Rep 26% Ind breakdown. He believes that this will be the composition of the actual voter population on November 2 of this year. A large Harris party ID survey (6000 respondents) earlier this year found a simliar partisan breakdown among voters.

I am skeptical that this weighting is representative of party affiliation, especially among likely voters and especially if done earlier in the year (when Bush and Republicans generally were in a weaker position than they are today). More generally, I distrust polls that weight by party affiliation because the weighting destroys the randomness of the sample and thereby renders the poll unscientific.

[embedded_rebel]

I doubt that Florida is part of the polling given what is going on there this weekend.
And if people from Florida were polled the nasty weather(Bush's fault /sarcasm) would bias the results in favor of kerry.

[comebacknewt]

Scotty typically waits to see what the mainstream pollsters show before he moves his numbers.

Just wait. If Gallup, or the ABC or NBC polls show strong movement towards Bush, Scotty will follow shortly.

[Josh in PA]

agree