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Revision as of 13:28, 19 July 2010
Rasmussen Reports is an American public opinion polling firm. Founded by pollster Scott Rasmussen, a co-founder of ESPN, the company updates its President's job approval rating and other indexes daily, and provides public opinion data, analysis, and commentary, along with coverage of business, economic, and lifestyle issues.
History of Rasmussen Reports
Scott Rasmussen was a co-founder of ESPN[1]. He was involved in a number of outfits, including being President of Grassroots Research in the mid-1990s.[2] In 1999, his company, Rasmussen Research, was bought by TownPagesNet.com for about $4.5 million in ordinary shares,[3] where Rasmussen continued polling under the TownPagesNet.com umbrella with Portrait of America polling.[4] Rasmussen later founded Rasmussen Reports in 2003, where the firm continues to do polling for politics and public opinion, as well as provide analysis and commentary.[5]
Rasmussen Reports polls make use of automated public opinion polling, involving pre-recorded telephone inquiries and automated surveys at a low cost.[1] Polls by Rasmussen Reports are cited regularly by multiple major news sources, and Rasmussen has appeared as a guest analyst on a number of news broadcasts, including the Fox News Channel, the BBC, CNN, NPR, and CNBC.
Reputation
Rasmussen Reports has been among the most reliable and accurate polling companies in the United States for the last three election cycles. Slate Magazine and The Wall Street Journal both found that Rasmussen Reports was among the most accurate polling firms for the 2004 United States presidential election and 2006 United States general elections.[6][7] A preliminary analysis from Fordham University ranked Rasmussen Reports as one of the two most accurate polling firms in the 2008 Election[8], as Rasmussen's final poll showing Barack Obama winning by 6%[9] while the true margin was 6.6%.[10][11] His polling was also cited in being among the earliest to note the increase in support for Scott Brown's candidacy in the 2010 special election for Senate in Massachusetts, a poll that was noticed in the Obama administration according to unnamed sources.[1]
Media outlets and political pundits have described Rasmussen Reports as a conservative polling group.[12][13] Scott Rasmussen was a paid consultant for the 2004 George W. Bush campaign,[14] providing an interactive feature for customers to program their own polls[1] and he wrote for World Net Daily in the early 2000s[1]. Mark Blumenthal of National Journal and Pollster.com believes that Rasmussen positions their polls "to get their results on cable news."[1] Josh Marshall of the award-winning political analysis site Talking Points Memo noted that Rasmussen's polling was reliable, but alleged that Rasmussen asks questions that are "frequently skewed toward GOP or conservative viewpoints."[15]
Rasmussen has also been criticized for the use of recorded automated calling. In 2004 Slate "publicly doubted and privately derided" Rasmussen's use of recorded voices in electoral polls, although admitted Rasmussen's success following the election.[16] Following a poll in May, South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Henry McMaster released a statement deriding Rasmussen for using "robo-calls," falsely claiming that Rasmussen's results in previous elections were "less reliable."[17]
According to Norah O'Donnell on an MSNBC broadcast, the network does not use Rasmussen polls,[18] although many outlets including Fox News,[19] U.S. News and World Reports[20] and the Wall Street Journal[21] continue to do so.
References
- ^ a b c d e f Pollster Scott Rasmussen's numbers are firing up Republicans and Democrats, Washington Post, 17 June 2010. URL accessed 1 July 2010
- ^ Retirement Plans, Reason Magazine, March 1996. URL accessed 1 July 2010.
- ^ Securities and Exchange Commission, Form 6-K, December 1999
- ^ Rasmussen Research named most accurate in primary polling, Business Wire, 14 March 2000. URL accessed 1 July 2010.
- ^ "About Us", Rasmussen Reports, URL accessed 1 July 2010.
- ^ David Kenner and William Saletan, Let's Go to the Audiotape, Slate, December 9, 2004
- ^ Bialik, Carl (2006-11-16). "Grading the Pollsters". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
- ^ http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics/graduate_schools/gsas/elections_and_campaign_/poll%20accuracy%20in%20the%202008%20presidential%20election.pdf
- ^ Rasmussen Reports: 2008 Presidential Election: "How Did We Do?" 6 November 2008. URL accessed 5 July 2010.
- ^ FEC 2008 Presidential election results URL accessed 5 July 2010.
- ^ National Council on Public Polls Table of National Election Results, Preliminary 2008 Results. More tables for the 2008 election are available here. URLs accessed 16 July 2010.
- ^ "Has 'Climategate' Been Overblown?". Time. December 7, 2009. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
WaPo2010was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Campaign Consultants, [1], Center For Public Integrity, 2003-2004
- ^ Dangerous Brew, Talking Points Memo, 23 February 2009. URL accessed 1 July 2010.
- ^ Slate, [2] Dec 9, 2004
- ^ Candidates, Kos go after Rasmussen, Washington Post, 24 May 2010. URL accessed 1 July 2010.
- ^ MSNBC broadcast, 14 May 2009.
- ^ Fox News/Rasmussen Swing State Polls: Real Clear Politics, 28 September 2008. URL accessed 16 July 2010.
- ^ Poll: Gulf Oil Spill Hurts Obama's Image, U.S. News and World Reports, 1 July 2010. URL accessed 1 July 2010.
- ^ Anybody But Rubio?, Wall Street Journal, 18 June 2010. URL accessed 1 July 2010.