Rasmussen Reports Poll
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trump says kimmel shd be fired for low # but his are lower 9 25
an 9 25
Social media is hounding the White House for posting false numbers allegedly putting President Donald Trump’s approval at 57.11 percent.
“At no point during his 2nd term has his approval rating on the Rasmussen daily tracking poll been at 57 percent,” said internet critic Shawn Foss. “This is from Rasmussen's website. The highest mark was 56 percent on January 23rd. Why lie about something so easily verifiable?”
Trump’s media department handling X posts attributed the numbers to Rasmussen Report’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, but that’s not what the numbers show when following Rasmussen’s information back to its source. Rasmussen’s Daily tracking numbers show Trump trending easily below 50 percent, where it stands this month.
“They literally just lied about the poll they cite,” said another X poster who attached a snapshot showing total approval in the 40s.
Rassmussen, despite hovering below 50 percent, is also noted to be biased toward the Republican Party, another X commenter noted, so the average should have arguably been higher.
“So, like, I don’t trust the Rasmussen Report, I think it’s bulls——. But if you just go to the website, it’s not 57 percent. Lol,” said “Saved by the Bell” actor Marcos González.
“How can we be living in this world of alternate facts?” posted San Diego bilingual Latino newspaper La Prensa San Diego. “Official White House post claims Rasmussen poll shows 57.11 percent approve for Trump but no such number exists. At all. Anywhere. Not even at Rasmussen. Grok is confused. Show your work!”
“Idk if I’m reading it wrong or what, but coming from the direct source this is just a straight f—— lie,” said another commenter, who provided a true, les generous snapshot of Rassmussen’s numbers.
“We’ve gotten to the point where if this administration is marketing something — ANYTHING — I automatically default to it being bullshit. Rarely lets me down,” said another critic on X.
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Criticism
FiveThirtyEight
In 2010, Nate Silver wrote an article titled "Is Rasmussen Reports biased?" in which he mostly defended Rasmussen from allegations of bias.[97] However, later in the year, Rasmussen's polling results diverged notably from those of other mainstream pollsters, which Silver labeled a "house effect", Silver's term for bias in polls that correlates with the organization doing the polling.[96] He went on to explore other factors that may have explained the effect, such as the use of a likely voter model,[98] and said that Rasmussen conducted its polls in a way that excluded the majority of the population from answering.[99]
After the 2010 midterm elections, Silver concluded that Rasmussen's polls were the least accurate of the major pollsters in 2010, having an average error of 5.8 points and a pro-Republican bias of 3.9 points according to Silver's model.[84]
In 2024, after Silver was replaced by G. Elliott Morris, Rasmussen was dropped entirely from FiveThirtyEight's polling averages and analysis. A spokesperson said that Rasmussen failed to meet FiveThirtyEight's recently updated standards for pollsters.[100]
Bias in questions
Jonathan Chait of the New Republic said that Rasmussen is perceived in the "conservative world" as "the gold standard"[101] and suggested the polling company asks the questions specifically to show public support for the conservative position. He cited an example[102] in which Rasmussen asked "Should the government set limits on how much salt Americans can eat?" when the issue was actually whether to limit the amount of salt only in pre-processed food.
Rasmussen Reports has frequently claimed that COVID-19 vaccines are lethal,[103] election denialism,[103][104][105][106] stated that a poll held 4 months after the 2020 United States Senate elections was representative of the results on the election day,[104] merged 3 topics into the same question, released the results 11 months later and claimed that the outcome of the poll was representative of COVID-19 vaccines' mortality rate.[107]
Other
The Center for Public Integrity listed "Scott Rasmussen Inc" as a paid consultant for the 2004 George W. Bush campaign.[108] The Washington Post reported that the 2004 Bush re-election campaign had used a feature on the Rasmussen Reports website that allowed customers to program their own polls, and that Rasmussen asserted that he had not written any of the questions nor assisted Republicans.[109]
In 2009 Time magazine described Rasmussen Reports as a "conservative-leaning polling group".[110] John Zogby said in 2010 that Scott Rasmussen had a "conservative constituency".[111] In 2012 The Washington Post called Rasmussen a "polarizing pollster".[112]
Rasmussen has received criticism over the wording in its polls.[113][114] Asking a polling question with different wording can affect the results of the poll;[115] the commentators in question allege that the questions Rasmussen ask in polls are skewed in order to favor a specific response. For instance, when Rasmussen polled whether Republican voters thought Rush Limbaugh was the leader of their party, the specific question they asked was: "Agree or Disagree: 'Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party—he says jump and they say how high.'"[114]
Talking Points Memo has questioned the methodology of Rasmussen's Presidential Approval Index, which takes into account only those who "strongly" approve or disapprove of the President's job performance. TPM noted that this inherently skews negative, and reported that multiple polling experts were critical of the concept.[51] A New York Times article says Rasmussen Reports research has a "record of relying on dubious sampling and weighting techniques".[116] Rasmussen has also been criticized for only polling Likely Voters which, according to Politico, "potentially weeds out younger and minority voters".[117]
A 2017 article by Chris Cillizza for CNN raised doubts about Rasmussen's accuracy, drawing attention specifically to potential sampling biases such as the exclusion of calls to cell phones (which, Cillizza argued, tended to exclude younger voters), and also more generally to a lack of methodological disclosure. Cillizza did, however, note in the same piece that Rasmussen was one of the more accurate polling organizations during the 2016 United States presidential election.[118]
A December 2018 article by political writer and analyst Harry Enten called Rasmussen the least accurate pollster in the 2018 midterm elections after stating Rasmussen had projected the Republicans to come ahead nationally by one point, while at the time Democrats were actually winning the national House vote by 8.6 points—an error of nearly 10 points.[119]
The Associated Press has also addressed Rasmussen's methodology. In 2018, AP journalists noted that Rasmussen's telephone methodology systematically omits adults, many of them young people, without landlines. The AP also noted that Rasmussen does not provide details regarding its online-panel methodology.[120]
In an article for The Hill titled "Rasmussen Research has a pro-GOP bias", panelist discussed Rasmussen's practice of adjusting results by party identification. In addition to providing professional criticism from Ipsos, the article cited methodological concerns from Frank Newport of Gallup.[2]
In 2024, The Washington Post's fact checker determined that Rasmussen had spread false information about the accuracy and reliability of Dominion Voting Systems's voting machines.[121]
In 2024, American Muckrakers alleged that Rasmussen shared polling results with members of the Trump presidential campaign before public release.[122]
Split Ticket also does not include Rasmussen in its polling averages.[123]
See also
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