Rasmussen Reports' latest poll suggests it's removed from reality--Trump at 48 percent approval????

It’s no secret that Rasmussen Reports has a yuuuuge pro-Republican house effect. But its latest presidential tracking poll has me wondering if it’s had a bit too much covfefe. It finds Trump’s approval rating at a whopping 48 percent, versus 50 percent disapproval.

The problem? Virtually every other pollster in Nate Silver’s basket has shown Trump struggling to get out of the mid-40s for most of the year. Indeed, a look at FiveThirtyEight’s latest average of approval rating polls leads me to wonder how much Rasmussen is skewing the numbers. Trump’s average approval rating, even with Rasmussen, is absolutely brutal—41.3 percent. But you don’t have to be a mathematician or polling guru to know that without Rasmussen’s wonky numbers, Trump would probably be lucky to be in the 40s.

Granted, we already know Trump’s numbers are inflated in part due to religious right bullying. But with results that far off from the rest of the field, you have to wonder whether Rasmussen is trying a little too hard to press its thumb on the scale for Trump.

I know, I know—why post about a poll when we should be ramping up the GOTV machine? But with one poll being so far out of whack compared to the others, it’s only fair to ask whether the ground is shifting out from under Trump faster than even we’ve seen.