Conservative Arithmetic
It appears that in the conservasphere Rasmussen polling is called “Rasmussen the most accurate pollster.” In fact Rasmussen had the best performance in 2008. This was widely noted.
However Rasmussen performed terribly in 2010.
If one focused solely on the final poll issued by Rasmussen Reports or Pulse Opinion Research in each state — rather than including all polls within the three-week interval — it would not have made much difference. Their average error would be 5.7 points rather than 5.8, and their average bias 3.8 points rather than 3.9.
So I googled [ rasmussen “most accurate pollster” -2008 ] for the claim without the qualification which makes it accurate. The results were impressive with a huge number of sites confidently claiming that Rasmussen is (not was is) the most accurate pollster. To be honest, I haven’t clicked the links (I notice that the text around one refers to the President as “Obumbler”). To me this is a glance into conservatives’ separate reality.
Somehow the new data from 2010 is irrelevant. Once a claim has been accepted as fact, it becomes immortal and invulnerable to new data.
There is a simple explanation for why Rasmussen used to be accurate and later had a huge Republican bias. They don’t call cell phones (they are a robopoller and not allowed to call cell phones). Back in the good old days of 2008 when almost everyone had a land line, this wasn’t a huge problem. Now it is. Clearly in 2010 they didn’t remove the bias from not polling cell phone only households. As far as I understand it, they weight using a 3 month average of Rasmussen polls. This removes noise but does nothing to bias. In any case the weird kids these days who don’t have normal phones may be different from well me not just because they tend to be young and poor but also because they … well I just don’t understand them and I think Scott Rasmussen doesn’t have a clue either.
So there is a plausible story for why Rasmussen might have been accurate in the past then became inaccurate. This hypothesis is overwhelmingly supported by data in the public domain. And it hasn’t penetrated the conservabubble at all.
Well, perhaps it hasn’t penetrated a particular conservative bubble. There is plenty of evidence that some conservatives – “many” may be more accurate – are aware that polls generally are running against their candidate, and they seem quite convinced that he’s in trouble.
I’ve no doubt that there are some conservatives who cling to Rasmussen results (Romney’s recent claim to be tied with Obama makes Romney seem one of them), but the bubble is too big for only those people to fill it up.
I do not think you can attribute accuracy in 2008 and inaccuracy in 2010 to young people with cell phones. A lot of young people only had cell phones in 2008–and this was a topic of discussion at the time–and those numbers likely had not chnaged a whole lot by 2010. Further, young people typically do not vote as much as older folks and are more likely to vote in a presidential election than in an off year election like 2010. In other words, I think something else made Rasmussen inaccurate in 2010 and whether Rasmussen has corrected for whatever bias it had in 2010 is not known to me.
Terry –
It’s not just a young person effect. Families are eliminating their land lines in favor of cell phones. That demographic, which might be more progressive, is lost.
Somehow the new data from 2010 is irrelevant. Once a claim has been accepted as fact, it becomes immortal and invulnerable to new data.
Don’t you think this is typical of the conservative mind set? Look at the conservative economists who believe that classical economic principles, which have some validity in certain economic environments, are therefore valid in ALL economic environments.
It’s stereotyped thinking that falls readily into prejudice and cliche. That is how the regressive mind works.
JzB
Already paying for one phone line (or many more in a family in many cases), why pay for another one that only marketers will ever call?
When phone lines were true land lines instead of digital internet lines, there were advantages (didn’t go out in a power outage), but now those advantages no longer exist.
@Terry I admit I just don’t get kids these days and their newfangled cellular wireless phones. I own a cell phone but I didn’t know the number*. I live in Italy where cell phones took over sooner than in the USA (it’s hard to lose when your competition is Telecom Italia). So really I’m cluless.
*I had to look up phone numbers on my hard disk to get its number and the latest pre-paid number which was cancelled as I added nothing to the account for a year (since I never called (this has happened to three of four cellphone numbers of mine)). Then I called the numbers to see which one made it ring.
Scott Rasmussen may not be ready for the brave new world of wireless telephony, but he is much readier than I am.
@JzB I absolutely think it is totally typical of conservative mindset.
Well I have a cell phone because my company makes me carry it–which effectively means I never get time off–and I made them stick the number on the back so i would remember it.I absolutely agree with the proposition that the conservative mind set is inflexible, does not see shades of gray and tends to rely on anecdotal information to support a position conveniently cherry picking the anecdotes. That being said I stand by my thinking that something else–besides cell phones–is the reason Rasmussen was accurate in 2008 and inaccurate in 2010. Now if it turns out that Rasmussen was adjusting its numbers in 2008 to reflect that it was robocalling only land lines and did not make those adjustments in 2010 then I would agree that the cell phone issue at least indirectly is at the heart of the problem
Rasmussen was nowhere close to best in 2008. His top line (national) numbers were close (though not best) — but his state-by-state numbers were significantly off (and almost always biased for McCain).
Conservatives are living in 2004, when Raz did well (also Bush was awesome and Romney was not insane).
I hear the House of Representatives has been offered a bill which says that only individuals that can show proof that they own AND use a land-line are eligible to vote.
Anna Lee….that is funny!