Scott Ramussen Responds to Stu Rothenberg
Democrats are passing around this article by election handicapper Stuart Rothenberg, which takes the hammer and tongs to Rasmussen Reports. Rothenberg focuses on a poll that finds Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) weak against a first-time candidate.
“„Dave Westlake probably is a nice guy, and I wish him well. But there is no way that two out of three likely Wisconsin voters know enough about him to have an opinion of him (unless Rasmussen provided other information, such as party). And that’s what the favorable/unfavorable question is intended to produce — information about the person’s name identification and image.
I asked Scott Rasmussen to respond. “I think it’s funny,” he said, “that some people like to pick at the details rather than focusing on the overall accuracy of our work.”
Rasmussen’s full answers after the jump:
“„We ask favs *after *the ballot question. So, the little known candidates get a lot of very “somewhat” fav or unfav depending upon which party they’re in.
“„That’s the reason we emphasize the Strong opinions in our stories.
“„We ask favs after the ballot question for two reasons. First, the ballot question is most important. Second, most people may not know the names of challengers even on election day. But they have an opinion along the lines of “Oh yeah, that’s who’s running against Senator so-and-so.”
“„I think it’s funny that some people like to pick at the details rather than focusing on the overall accuracy of our work.
“„It’s also interesting that people fail to note other aspects of our polling. For example, in the Rothenberg article, he claims that Daggett underperformed all the polls. Actually, we nailed the NJ race (we showed Dagget with 8 and he got 6). It was the operator-assisted polls that showed Dagget with a bigger number.
“„Another example is in Nevada where our latest polling shows the most favorable result for Harry Reid.
