Fox News/Rasmussen Poll Reversal Now Shows Clinton Beating Trump

Last week, Fox News released a poll conducted by Rasmussen which showed GOP nominee Donald Trump beating Democrat Hillary Clinton by a margin of five percent. The poll sent shock waves throughout the political world, with many pundits saying it now looked like perhaps Trump could indeed win the general election.

But wait a minute. Not so fast. Rasmussen has conducted a new poll, and this one shows Clinton besting Trump by a margin of 40 to 39 percent. Why the reversal in so short of a time period? According to Rasmussen:

“Last week in the debut White House Watch survey, Trump held a 42% to 37% lead, but hypothetical matchups between the two likely major party presidential candidates have been close since Rasmussen Reports first began them last October.

“Neither candidate is showing any significant gain in support and appears to have yet dented the unfavorable perceptions that many voters have of them.”

Translation: Rasmussen screwed up with their statistical modeling and the way they conducted the first poll. Hell, they may have screwed this one up, too, but they’ll never admit that because to do so would destroy whatever shred of credibility they still have left.

Additionally, the new Rasmussen poll also provides this information:

Clinton earns 77% of the Democratic vote, while 72% of Republicans say they favor Trump. Both candidates draw 12% of support from voters in the opposing party. Among voters who say they are not affiliated with either major party, Trump leads 34% to 30%, but 37% prefer someone else or are undecided. Clinton posts a 16-point advantage among women, but Trump leads by 12 points among men.

Other national polls have shown Clinton beating Trump by margins as large as six points, and it seems likely that the pollsters at Rasmussen realized their data had to be flawed if they were the only ones showing Trump up by a margin as large as five percent.

Polls are not a science by any stretch of the imagination, but they are helpful tools for campaigns. Rasmussen’s polling always leans to the right because they bias their questions, their sample size, and their pool of respondents to fit their agenda. In other words, if Rasmussen says something, you’d be better off ignoring them and remembering they poll for Fox News, which has a vested interest in promoting the Republican nominee.

Once the Democratic race is decided next week and Clinton is the nominee, the party will unify and the polls will begin to show a surge for Clinton. By November, that surge could well translate into a historic victory for Democrats.

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *