And I disagree at the point that it says he doesn’t use his own data. He can’t help using it.
If I have, for example, a base model of R 3 D 5 and O 2 = 10
and I combine it with my adjustment model of R 5 D 3 and 0 2 = 10
Then I end up with R 8 D 8 0 4 = 20 = 20/2 = 10
It is then from that adjusted base that I begin interpreting my polls with any other special sauce that I think is important (like attentiveness, likeability, job approval, etc.)
And I can have some percentage of dems dismayed more than reps, and I can have some percentage of indies more rep than dem, and NOT blow the numbers out of the water because it is a difference I’m dealing with and not a raw number. You can add, for example, a .05 difference between O support of R or D, to the Rep candidate and bump his number just a tad by “2*.05 = .1” to 5.1 and cut the 0 to 1.9. (It seems you could also split the difference bumping up the R and lowering the D, eacgh by 1/2 the difference, but I’m not sure which makes more sense. In any case, you’ve effectively placed leaning O’s with their candidate, and lowered the numbers of the Other category.)
So, what I understand Rasmussen to be doing is presenting a history adjusted by a contemporary that might be further adjusted by considerations he thinks are important.
If we survey 100 people and ask “Will you vote for Romney or Obama?” and we get 66% who say Obama and and 33% who say Romney and 1% who can’t make up their minds, we don’t accept that as an accurate predictor of a vote.
I think we’d toss out first those who aren’t going to vote as best as we can tell. If that leaves us with 75 people, then we’ve got a bit better picture, but it’s still not a balanced view of America Then we’d want to make sure we had enough women, enough minorities, enough old people, enough rural dwellers, etc. Say that process knocks us down to 65 people.
If we now impose a pre-determined, adjusted formula on that body that is, for example, 40/40/20, then to reach that we might go down to 55 people, but we’d have an n = 22/22/11 when we finally starting counting Obama, Romney votes.
If we end up with Romney 49% and Obama 48% and 3% O/U, have we not already made adjustments with our pre-determined, all-inclusive formula?
I’m no professional pollster, but this is the way I think it works from what I’ve read and studied over the years.
I want to say I’m open for correction, and I am, but I’m refusing to believe that Rasmussen does not use those Party affiliation numbers he spends so much money and time and resources gathering. A 3 month running sample of 15000 people is not easy, and especially when updated about every 3 weeks.