Rasmussen has been this cycle's most prolific pollster, by far. As of February:
Yes, Rasmussen Reports has fielded far more polls so far this cycle, both in absolute terms (45 vs. 13) and as a percentage of the total (28% vs 18%).
Rasmussen's volume hasn't decreased since then. If you want to see how spammy they are, check out this link.
Yesterday the nation had several hot races, including the House special election in PA-12, primaries in both parties in Kentucky and Arkansas, and the Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania.
And somehow, Rasmussen was nowhere to be found. Yet this past week, Rasmussen found time to poll Colorado, California, and those burning Idaho senate and governor races. He even polled the general election in Arkansas, ignoring the imminent primaries -- the better to show Arkansas Republican primary voters who their strongest candidate was.
You see, the thing about Rasmussen is that he cares only about setting the narrative that Democrats are doomed. And it's hard to build those narratives if you screw up polling actual elections.
So why take the risk of getting an actual election result wrong, this early in the cycle? There's a special election in PA-12? Who cares! Rasmussen is nowhere to be found. Just like in January, when Rasmussen -- who had polled the Massachusetts Senate special election twice earlier, decided to pull out of the race two weeks before the actual election. The day before that special, Rasmussen released a bizarre poll saying that nationally "interest high" in the race. Who gave a shit if there was national interest? Why wouldn't Rasmussen poll the actual race like the rest of real pollsters?
Turns out what Rasmussen wanted was to set the narrative, not actually get the results right. So it skipped the latter, and bragged about the former:
Rasmussen Reports provided the first news feed suggesting that Democratic candidate Martha Coakley might be in trouble on January 5, two full weeks before the election. In that poll, we showed Coakley’s lead down to single digits and noted that Republican candidate Scott Brown was within two points among those certain to vote. A week later, of course, we showed the race a toss-up with Brown leading among those certain to vote. About that time, Public Policy Polling also released a poll showing the race to be even.
It's not as if Rasmussen doesn't poll primaries. In fact, it polled the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic primary two weeks ago. But again, it refused to do a pre-election poll, because doing so would no longer help set narratives, and that's all Rasmussen cares about.
Today, Rasmussen released a poll showing Dick Blumenthal suddenly in trouble in Connecticut. How convenient! And narrative setting. Too bad he couldn't poll actual elections.
And yes, by November, Rasmussen's polling will be nicely in line with the rest of the polling aggregate, as he adjusts his voter screens to match reality, not whatever GOP-heavy universe he currently lives in. By then, he'll be less worried about setting narratives, and more worried about getting races right so that he can brag about his electoral track record. That way, he uses that credibility in order to once again set bullshit narratives in the 2012 election cycle. It's quite the scam!
Because if it itsn't a scam, there's no reason he should've skipped polling the big Tuesday races.
