How does this square with Rasmussen's own poll showing Romney up only 1 today?
Because it points at not only a Romney win, but a landslide. Or is this one of those rare cases where polls are fallible?
Rasmussen's polls do not point to a landslide. They point to an essentially tied race.
And the Gallup poll that everyone was hanging their hat on now has Romney up only 1 now, despite their statement that this will be a much more Republican friendly electorate.
I'm sorry, I agree with Sabato, Cook, etc. This is a close race but the Democratic turnout machine in the key swing states is probably just too much for Romney to overcome. The consensus of polls shows Obama up fractionally. I think to win, Romney would have needed to be up a couple with momentum in his direction. In that case he might have won it going away.
I know you say that the polls are rarely wrong, but don't certain things give you pause?
Yes. I fully concede I could be wrong. There are some things that make me wonder if my prediction is correct. All these educated guesses are predicated on the Democratic turnout machine. If their enthusiasm is too much less than I suspect it is, Romney might have an edge. But I've seen this before - our side is jacked up and we make wrong assumptions that the other won't turn out. The problem is polling is showing that, while certainly not at a 1008 levels of excitement, the left is going to turn out.
I don’t think you understood my question (probably my fault). The polls are showing a tight race, with Obama probably leading. The issue is whether they are all built around faulty assumptions. Specifically, the relative turnout of D and R.
Rasmussen’s party affiliation poll has a good track-record in predicting actual turnout. That poll is completely at odds with the assumptions built into all preference polls (including, ironically enough, Rasmussen’s). My question to you is:
do you believe that this poll is an outlier?
My other question would be this: predicting an Obama victory is safe. If you are wrong, then you can always say that everyone else did to. Why then are people like Barone, Rove, Severin, Dick Morris, and now Peggy Noonan going out on such a limb in predicting a Romney victory/landslide? Why stake their reputation in that way, unless their sources are telling them something that is at complete odds with the polling consensus?
Occam’s razor would appear to apply here. The simplest explanation is that the facts on the ground don’t support the polling consensus’ assumptions, and internal polls don’t either. And these well-connected insiders are willing to stake their reputation on the actual data, as opposed to made-for-tv polls. Given the behavior of the Romney and Obama campaigns, they too don’t believe that the consensus is accurate, either.