CO: Rasmussen: McCain 48, Obama 46

[Sam Spade]

New Poll: Colorado President by Rasmussen on 2008-09-14

Summary: D: 46%, R: 48%, I: 4%, U: 2%

Poll Source URL: Full Poll Details

Topline Numbers

McCain 48%

Obama 46%

Barr 1%

Nader 3%

McKinney 0%

Undecided 2%

[charltonNick]

Is Nader really a damaging factor here?

[Ty440]

Between this and PA being tied I don't know which one has me more giddy

[Eleden]

Is Nader really a damaging factor here?

Probably not.  Generally people claim they're voting for Nader in polls, yet break for the Democrat on election day. 

[Eraserhead]

Uggh.

[Aizen]

this must be a bad dream

somebody pinch me

[HardRCafé]

Open up and say awesome!

[Zarn]

Between this and PA being tied I don't know which one has me more giddy

If we win PA, we may not need VA or CO. I'll guess we'll see.

[Keystone Phil]

Awesome

[Sbane]

The same as the national average. Looks just fine. VA is more interesting.

[ChrisFromNJ]

Can we put an R next to this poll?

This is a Fox News poll.

[Alcon]

Can we put an R next to this poll?

This is a Fox News poll.

This is a poll conducted by Rasmussen for Fox, which has not shown much of an historical GOP bias.  So, um, no.

[KeyKeeper]

Can we put an R next to this poll?

This is a Fox News poll.

This is a Rasmussen poll done for Fox News, they are just paying for it, just like your great Kos brothers are doing with Research 2000 polls.

[ChrisFromNJ]

Can we put an R next to this poll?

This is a Fox News poll.

This is a poll conducted by Rasmussen for Fox, which has not shown much of an historical GOP bias.  So, um, no.

The Research 2000 polls are labeled as done for Daily Kos, so it is only right for these to labeled as for Fox News.

Let's not be hypocritical.

[Ronnie]

Yipee!!!!

[Nym90]

The 3 for Nader is the thing that keeps me hopeful here. No way Nader will get 3 in CO, he got 0.6 in 2004 and I'd be surprised if he did that well again.

[Likely Voter]

The 3 for Nader is the thing that keeps me hopeful here. No way Nader will get 3 in CO, he got 0.6 in 2004 and I'd be surprised if he did that well again.

could you imagine if the election comes down to CO and Nader ends up with more votes than a McCain margin of victory. I think Arianna Huffington and Markos Malitsos (sp?) would put out a hit on Ralph.

[The Vorlon]

Can we put an R next to this poll?

This is a Fox News poll.

This is a poll conducted by Rasmussen for Fox, which has not shown much of an historical GOP bias.  So, um, no.

For the record..

In 2004 Rasmussen had an average error of a bit under 2% on his state polling.

Regarding the issue of Bias, there was essentially none, he was as likely to miss one way as the other.

In fact, if you look at the actual numbers he had a very slight tendency to ever so slighty underpoll the Republican - it's tiny - just 0.65% - but statistically, the tiny pull Rasmussen had was to the left and not to the right...

Sorry all you Fox News haters.. the charge of bias against Rasmussen simply has no basis in actual fact.

Bush won Ohio in 2004, get over it... Rasmussen's poll was not ther cause of Bush winning, it was the effect....

Rasmussen is just the messenger for a message at this point in time you don't like....

[Lunar]

Well, I think Rasmussen's charge of bias comes from three fronts:
1) Hard weighting doesn't favor Obama.  This might  have actually been the reverse in 2004, not really sure.  His weights I believe are more Republican-friendly than many other pollsters, but that doesn't make them wrong.
2) I think Rasmussen himself is a Republican and is often a featured speaker on FOX news.  Neither of these things matter of course.
3) Most pollsters have a pro-Democrat bias, thus someone who is dead-on appears biased relative to everyone else.

Out of morbid curiousness, Vorlon, can publishers who hire pollsters refuse to publish the results if they don't like them?  I mean, news organizations care more about money than ideology (hell, this includes the Daily Kos), but I'm not sure how a pollster would react to that.

It wouldn't be surprising if FOX knew Rasmussen's track record was to the right of other pollsters and chose Razzy for that reason, in addition to their historical accuracy. 

[The Vorlon]

Well, I think Rasmussen's charge of bias comes from three fronts:
1) Hard weighting doesn't favor Obama.  This might  have actually been the reverse in 2004, not really sure.  His weights I believe are more Republican-friendly than many other pollsters, but that doesn't make them wrong.
2) I think Rasmussen himself is a Republican and is often a featured speaker on FOX news.  Neither of these things matter of course.
3) Most pollsters have a pro-Democrat bias, thus someone who is dead-on appears biased relative to everyone else.

Out of morbid curiousness, Vorlon, can publishers who hire pollsters refuse to publish the results if they don't like them?  I mean, news organizations care more about money than ideology (hell, this includes the Daily Kos), but I'm not sure how a pollster would react to that.

I can only speak from my own personal experience, but my contracts with my clients simply require me to design the sample, do the indicated field work, compile the results and deliver the report.  The contract grants them the right to publish the results, but in no way are they required to do so. - As long as their check doesn't bounce, I really don't care.

I once actually lost a contract over not delivering the type of poll a client wanted.

I was polling a provincial election in the Canadian province of Alberta and a local newspaper hired me to run a tracking poll province wide.

Everything went very well from my perspective, and my final numbers were basically dead on.  I missed the popular vote by I think 1.5% or so, and my seat projection model missed by one seat out of 83.

The next election the newspaper declined to re-engage my services and the explanatiion I was given was that my results were "boring" and did not make for good stories.... 

The new pollster they hired was (and is) a total idiot, his results were massively innacurate, his seat projections were totally f**ked...

They liked him... made for exciting copy I guess...

As I have said before, bad polling and bad journalism are a marraige made in heaven...

[pepper11]

Lots of swing states in 04. And Ras got every single one correct. Enough said.

[Lunar]

Lots of swing states in 04. And Ras got every single one correct. Enough said.

If this election is like 2004 you're 100% right.

One could argue that hard weights might work less than ideal for 2008 due to competing surges of enthusiasm.  Who knows, but I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket.

edit: disregard this post

[auburntiger]

I;m not getting excited until I consistently see McCain leading here. But at least he is way up from where we were during the summer...uggh.

Oh and the Virginia poll about Obama +4, wasn't that the same company that showed McCain up by 20 and 17 in NC...in other words, I don't buy it.

[Sam Spade]

Lots of swing states in 04. And Ras got every single one correct. Enough said.

If this election is like 2004 you're 100% right.

One could argue that hard weights might work less than ideal for 2008 due to competing surges of enthusiasm.  Who knows, but I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket.

Rasmussen doesn't hard weight his state polls to party ID.  For some reason, that myth has been perpetuated countless times on this forum.

[Lunar]

Lots of swing states in 04. And Ras got every single one correct. Enough said.

If this election is like 2004 you're 100% right.

One could argue that hard weights might work less than ideal for 2008 due to competing surges of enthusiasm.  Who knows, but I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket.

Rasmussen doesn't hard weight his state polls to party ID.  For some reason, that myth has been perpetuated countless times on this forum.

Brain fart, I'm stupid.  Most of that myth has been me spreading it despite being proven wrong already with you disproving me once already.

Does he weight by other attributes?  I mean, Rasmussen's accuracy can't 100% be attributed to getting a really good SRS and non-leading questions, right?