Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate; Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA Performed Strongly

[Guest areafiftyone]

NY TIMES:

Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate; Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA Performed Strongly
By Nate Silver of FIVETHIRTYEIGHT

Every election cycle has its winners and losers: not just the among the candidates, but also the pollsters. On Tuesday, polls conducted by the firm Rasmussen Reports — which released more than 100 surveys in the final three weeks of the campaign, including some commissioned under a subsidiary on behalf of Fox News — badly missed the margin in many states, and also exhibited a considerable bias toward Republican candidates.

Other polling firms, like SurveyUSA and Quinnipiac University, produced more reliable results in Senate and gubernatorial races. A firm that conducts surveys by Internet, YouGov, also performed relatively well.

What follows is a preliminary analysis of polls released to the public in the final 21 days of the campaign. Our process here is quite simple: we’ve taken all such polls in our database, and assessed how accurate they were, on average, in predicting the margin separating the two leading candidates in each race. For instance, a poll that had the Democrat winning by 2 percentage points in a race where the Republican actually won by 4 would have an error of 6 points.

We’ve also assessed whether a company’s polls consistently missed in either a Democratic or Republican direction — that is, whether they were biased. The hypothetical poll I just described would have had a 6 point Democratic bias, for instance.

The analysis covers all polls issued by firms in the final three weeks of the campaign, even if a company surveyed a particular state multiple times. In our view, this provides for a more comprehensive analysis than focusing solely on a firm’s final poll in each state, since polling has a tendency to converge in the final days of the campaign, perhaps because some firms fear that their results are an outlier and adjust them accordingly.

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.

Moreover, Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen’s polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases — that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued.

[Casino67]

Seems as though Scott doesn't agree.

 

Election results

[pollyannaish]

Who would have guessed it.

 

The New York times spinning polls to justify their leftward bias against a pollster that works with Fox News.

 

The proliferation of polls and their use by media outlets to influence the public is disgusting.

[Guest areafiftyone]

Who would have guessed it.

 

The New York times spinning polls to justify their leftward bias against a pollster that works with Fox News.

 

The proliferation of polls and their use by media outlets to influence the public is disgusting.

 

Actually in reality its not the NY Times its' Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight which is doing the numbers. NY Times is just posting the blogsite. FiveThirtyEight is neither Democrat nor Republican leaning and the guy worked for a sports media company. Click on the FiveThirtyEight website. I've been reading them since the 2008

[Stella]

With so many people using cell phones instead of landlines, it must be difficult to really get accurate polls. Also, the touch the button polls are just asking for odd responses. I heard Sabato and Rasmussen both speak about how they get their numbers taking into account last elections, etc. and it seemed like an inexact science. The polls for the Governor of Illinois were very inaccurate. The polls didn't take into account the numbers of people who went to the polls and just didn't vote for Governor because they didn't like either one of them. I was polled by Rasmussen about the Governor's race and they didn't ask me that question, they just assumed I was voting for Governor after they asked me if I was a likely voter.

[Guest areafiftyone]

With so many people using cell phones instead of landlines, it must be difficult to really get accurate polls. Also, the touch the button polls are just asking for odd responses. I heard Sabato and Rasmussen both speak about how they get their numbers taking into account last elections, etc. and it seemed like an inexact science. The polls for the Governor of Illinois were very inaccurate. The polls didn't take into account the numbers of people who went to the polls and just didn't vote for Governor because they didn't like either one of them. I was polled by Rasmussen about the Governor's race and they didn't ask me that question, they just assumed I was voting for Governor after they asked me if I was a likely voter.

 

That is why I usually look at Real Clear Politics when there is a race. They give you most polls and do an average so you can gage. I don't rely on one poll.