Rasmussen Polls vs. 2006: Final Senate Results

Rasmussen Reports ^ | 11/10/06 | Rasmussen Reports

[HitmanLV]

If anyone, during the '08 election, starts spewing nonsense about how all of the polls are distorted/biased/underrepresentingGOP/oversamplingDems/etcetcetc... I, for one, will open up a can of whoopass on you

I was saying this for well over a year, mostly in regards to Dubya's free-falling approval ratings, but also with many of the electoral polls. Mostly, we saw smug dismissal of them, or a curt, wisecracking response that Dubya will not win a third term. It was very short-sighted then, and it is now.

Any one poll is suspect, but any dozen polls taken in the same window of time do convey meaning, if they all pretty much tell the same story. So when you have 10 polls that show the president with approval ratings between 36 and 39, you can bet that while no single poll is probably right, the president;s approval is between 36 and 39.

Freepers need to really try and develop clarity. It's one of the big deficiencies on FR. Without clarity you will never get sound, meaningful analysis. I was one of the posters who suggested that the high number of dems polled meant that more people were self-identifying as dems, which in itself was alarming. This was dismissed out of hand, but now we know it was fairly accurate.

[napscoordinator]

If anyone, during the '08 election, starts spewing nonsense about how all of the polls are distorted/biased/underrepresentingGOP/oversamplingDems/etcetcetc... I, for one, will open up a can of whoopass on you


Me too. I listened to all the expert FREEPERS who I do respect, but can't believe how far off they were with their excuses about how the dems poll more, add five points. MSM is only saying dems are going to win, on and on....The problem is that it appears that some here have not learned a lesson and will not listen to polls. A shame if you ask me. One says that if the polls say we are going to lose than you expect us not to vote....NO that is not what is being said. What that means is that you start working to ensure that the numbers increase for our candidate instead of looking at them like they don't matter. It stuns me that people are still in denial.

[napscoordinator]

They knew the results way before the actual voting on Nov.7.




Yes because they were doing accurate polling or it seems that way to me. Why are you in denial (serious question not being a jerk).

[MrNatural]

..I do think most of the polls are really biased until the last week before the election...I did not get worried until the polls got worse in the end, instead of better.

Just so. And also, I'm beginning to think that there was a real shift towards the demoncrats right at the end.

In the lead up to the election, Rove and GW seemed genuinely confident. But I remember now, the last week before the election, GW was out campaigning in areas that should have been safely republican ... as though the internal polls had detected a sudden softness.

[Diddle E. Squat]

How accurate was your "LS Rule" this year ("Take any poll and add 5-10 points to the GOP side")? 100% wrong?

[Hawthorn]

> Take a look at the 2000 elections. If they had been Kerry would've won <

Oh, really? Who was JFK running against in that year?

[NYC Republican]

You and I were not only on the same page, we were on the same damn sentence! When I kept complaining that Bush/Cheney/Frist/Hastert didn't fight back, and the lies became cemented as truth in people's minds, putting his poll numbers into the 30s... fellow FReepers had dumb responses like, well he's not gonna win re-election

I KNEW the plan was to bring his poll numbers down, then use Bush as an albatross around other candidates' necks

What a disgrace...

By the way, I'd take your posts more seriously, but you happen to be a Savage fan, so each of your non-Savage posts are discredited, or discounted, by 23%

[NYC Republican]

Thank you

[HitmanLV]

I'm a Levin fan also, now. I enjoy his show a lot, which is on right after Savage here in Las Vegas so that might mitigate my 23% discount down by half if I am lucky! ;-)

SAVAGE!

LEVIN!

PRAGER!

INGRAHAM!

MEDVED

'DOUBLE H' HUGH HEWITT!

DOYLE!

BRUCE!

(and more)

[NYC Republican]

We still have folks here who INSIST that the MSM is a dying media, and there's no way Hillary can be elected... While I still think Bayh will be our next President, the media has 2 full years to prop up Hillary with OVERLY FAVORABLE press... She'll smell like roses after all's said and done...

We ignore her, or discount her chances, at our peril

[TruthSetsUFree]

2004. You know what I meant.

[NYC Republican]

Levin is great

[Blake#1]

I read somewhere that 25 million Republicans voted and 32 million Democrats voted. If true, what is the problem? Thanks to Savage and his radio program, he caused at least some Repubs to stay home. He pulled the 21st century's first Perotism. (Perotism = divide the Republican vote and Democrats win)

[kara37]

Well that is not completely fair, a lot of the polls were at least 5% off.


SurveyUSA... Talent (R) 42% , McCaskill (D) 51% McCaskill +9.0%

SurveyUSA ...Allen (R) 44% , Webb (D) 52% Webb +8.0%

Gallop... Burns (R) 41% , Tester (D) 50% Tester +9.0%

I think the lessen here would be look at all the numbers and if every one of them shows we are losing, we probably will.

[HitmanLV]

The MSM is powerful, no question. Their power is diminishing, though. That's not to say they aren't still very powerful.

The thing is, we have beaten them many time in the past: 1994, 2000, 2002, 2004 for example. A hostile media is a reason we might do poorly, but it's never an excuse. It's incumbent on our side to get the message out convincingly and cogently.

One main problem with this is that the admin can't seem to communicate very well. In fact, it's clear to me that a portion of our argument back in 2000 was clearly wrong. We insisted that the leader's communication skills weren't that important.

Clearly they are very important. In that respect, I was pleased that Allen took the wind out of his own sails on the campaign trail this year, and he isn't a credible presidential candidate as many Freepers (inexplicably) favored. I wanted him to retain his Senate seat, of course, but I didn't want him representing the GOP in election 2008.

Anybody who gets befuddled by Babs Boxer on a Sunday Morning show should be permanently disqualified from an office higher than their current office!

[nwrep]

Good job. Thanks for this public service. Freeperland was super-denial land over the past few weeks, and these resutls should be an eye-opener.

[stockstrader]

I couldn't agree more. I get sick and tired of all the 'poll trashing' here--just because FReepers don't like what the poll says.

For the most part--the polls were incredibly accurate (even with the biases, which will always exist)--just like they were in the last election.

For the most part, polling has gotten very, very accurate--as only a small percentage of polls were outside their margins of error.

As you stated, the 'state of denial' here is just incomprehensible. According to most on here--the only accurate polls are those which confirm the 'groupthink' here.

Nowdays polls give very, very useful information--which may not be perfect, but IS useful. I was glad to see this thread, because there has been little discussion on here about the accuracy of the polls (that speaks volumes in itself). Polls are to be trashed or ignored 'at your peril'.

[AntiGuv]

So, we lost because we didn't believe the polls?

In a sense, yeah. If you don't believe you have a serious problem you're not gonna do much of anything to fix it. I tried to get the point across over and over again but I simply got flamed. For starters, Rumsfeld needed to be gone back in the winter, or in the spring at the latest, not the day after the election disaster having hung around the GOP's neck like an albatross all year long..

[True Republican Patriot]

This is a severe wakeup call for 2008!!!!!!
We have to get back the House and the Senate as well as the Presidency. You dont do that by saying " Why worry, and why plan for a defeat." That attitude told Republican Voters that all was well in hand and instead we were handed our heads. We HAVE to start the Fight for 2008 TODAY! REPUBLICANS FOR TAKING BACK AMERICA IN 2008!!!!

[Edit35]

...to think that all of the media outlets are in cahoots to lie, come on...

I think you are confusing "media outlets" with polling companies.

Yes, the polling companies were by and large accurate --- but the "media outlets" such as MS-DNC, ABC, PBS, BCC, CBS are definitely in the can for the Dems.

Recall how ABC held the Foley story until late Sept. or early Oct., (they had the story in May or July) when it was too late to get another candidate, and it would do maximum damage.

Which it did.

The majority of national REPORTING media outlets, minus Fox News, and NOT talk shows, willingly printed any and every accusation or slam the liberal Democrats wanted.

How about "macacca".

It ran for two weeks on ABC, CBS, MS-DNC, PBS, NYTimes, etc.

How 'bout the rekindled investigation into GOP Rep. Curt Weldon's lobbyist daughter for supposedly knowing people who also knew her father, or something like that.

That story ran for a week here around Philly.

The Webb slights against women, the federal investigation of Menendez (NJ), the outright criticism of Hispanics and/or homo's by a dozen or more Democratic candidates NEVER made the national news once.

The only reason I (and probably you) heard any 'mistake' by a Democrat was because we listen to talk radio.

My local newspaper tried to tie my excellent Republican congressman to ... Foley, or some such nonsense because one of the Republican's staff members had once worked for Foley some 15 years ago.

The REPORTING news media, especially the AP, Reuters, and now Google News, is heavily in the tank for the Dems.

The polling companies might have a slight bias, but their business only does well if they remain as accurate as possible.

And that is a big incentive to play straight.