Rasmussen poll bias towards Obama

While most other polls are showing a tightening and Romney taking the lead in some; the often criticized (by me especially) Rasmussen poll shows Obama with a 3 point lead, his biggest since May.  And his most support since March.

Monday, August 27, 2012

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows President Obama attracting support from 47% of voters nationwide, while Mitt Romney earns 44% of the vote. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
This is the president’s biggest lead since May. His 47% level of support matches his best since March. See daily tracking history..


Now since the Rasmussen poll usually skews Republican, and now it seems to skew Democratic.  Here's a few guesses:


1.  Rasmussen is setting up a big bounce for Romney from convention.  I'm convinced at least some of these polls are bogus.  In that changing party id, sample size, gender weighting, etc. a pollster can just get whatever result they want.  So is this the case?

2.  random.  It is just a coincidence.

3.  publicity.  Scott Rasmussen constantly wants to be the story.  So a poll showing Romney in the lead would be conventional wisdom, so why not be the oddball?

4.  cya.  Later when the poll is back to being bias against Romney, this polling will be evidence that the Rasmusssen poll is "fair".


Final answer:

random.  I think the Rasmussen poll is on balance a fair outfit.  I think their assumptions benefit Republicans by a few points but not much more, and for the most part they're honest.  I'm sure there are times when they make political decisions about what questions to ask, what order to ask them, whom to ask, etc that skews results.  They should be listed as Republican pollsters.