Now, you all probably know Rasmussen tends to skew Republican (and as Eric Davis pointed out in the comments below, has a rather suspect methodology), but this released today is rather interesting:
Just days after emerging as the winner of an extremely close Democratic primary, Peter Shumlin is running slightly ahead of Republican Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie in Vermont’s gubernatorial race.
The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey shows Shumlin, the state Senate president pro tempore, picking up 49% of the vote, while Dubie draws support from 46%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and three percent (3%) are undecided.
Rassmusen aside, the more Dubie actually opens his mouth, we very well might see that gap get a lot wider in the coming weeks.
Rasmussen’s numbers make substantive sense (Shumlin-Dubie very competitive, Leahy way ahead of Britton), but there are several reasons to treat Rasmussen’s polls – in Vermont and other states – with caution.
1. Sample size is small – only 500 people. 700-800 respondents would be better, 1000-1200 (size of samples in national media polls) best.
2. Polling is done using automated dialing machines rather than live operators. Are the people punching their keypads really registered voters who are likely to turn out?
3. Respondents are weighted heavily to come up with demographically representative sample. In other words, if more women answer the phone than women % of voting-age population, they underweight the female responses rather than make more calls to get an appropriate number of male respondents.
4. Methodology page on Rasmussen’s Web site says nothing about whether cell-phone only users are included in the sample.
5. Rasmussen’s frequent appearances as analyst for Fox News raise issues about lack of partisan bias in his firm. Also, the Rasmussen-owned company that makes automatic calls for his polls – Pulse Opinion Research LLC – is the polling contractor for Fox News. Compare this with the practice of NBC News and the Wall Street Journal (another part of the Murdoch media group, along with Fox) to have their polling done jointly by Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster, and Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster.
Even from this poll it is at least a hopeful sign. It could change in the next five minutes, though, but it is at least hopeful.
…is that it will completely freak out the Dubie campaign and shake his already tenuous grip on the English language.
without too much meaning.
At the end of June Dubie was 55% to Shumlin’s 36%,
up 19%in 21/2 months.
I was reminded of this in a comment on Vtbuzz.
It is worth repeating even though the poll may mean little,something did move or change.