Rasmussen Shows Rebound In Support For Stimulus -- After GOPers Had Cited Last Week's Bad Numbers
A new Rasmussen poll suggests that support for the stimulus plan has picked up again, after it had previously fallen last week.
The numbers: 44% favor the package, 40% oppose it, and the remainder are undecided. The margin of error is ±3%.
Last week, Rasmussen showed support at an upside-down 37%-43%, a number that was immediately pushed hard by Republicans. For example, Karl Rove cited Rasmussen just this morning in his Wall St. Journal column, as a sign of how support had fallen.
Also consider that Rasmussen has consistently shown lower support for the plan than other firms have charted, but the positive movement is clear.
And so here's the problem with hanging your hopes on this week's poll. It remains to be seen whether this new survey will also be promoted by the GOP to the same degree that last week's was.
Josh
Matt
Eric
You lost me at Rasmussen
February 12, 2009 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
heh, true.
Also, the Dems are finally using the media again. They let the Republicans dominate the airwaves for awhile, and now it seems to be a bit more balanced to me. Amazing how we Americans are such sheep.
February 12, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, ratsmussen is the worst. They overstate republicans by 5% and understate dems and indies. Add at least 5 to the number that is not "conservative." How can ratsmussen be so low, when every other poll ahows much higher support? It really is pathetic.
February 12, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's their crap "likely voter" model- which isn't even relevant to an issue poll!
February 12, 2009 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
If only we could see their spreadsheet's formulas....... =average(B2:B100)+IF(DEM=(-5);ELSE(+5))
(yeah I know that this wouldn't actually work in EXCEL, but I didn't feel like going into it and doing it right. I mean, how much time's in a day, right?)
February 12, 2009 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't the timing of the number change last week kind of interesting, when Republians were desperately trying to stop or influence the stimulus? I'm not a conspiracist and I doubt anything screwy went on here, but it seems kind of interesting to me. And whoops!, the numbers are suddenly back up again! Whew!
February 12, 2009 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gallup Poll also shows an increase in support of the stimulus package from 52% to 59%. I like Gallup Poll because it has consistently shown support for the package 51-52% and now they have seen a change to 59%. So this change is REAL.
Also, I like Gallup because the wording of the questions is the same from poll to poll as oppose to the CBS poll which changed the questions from poll to poll.
February 12, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
It remains to be seen whether this new survey will also be promoted by the GOP to the same degree that last week's was.
Always the kidder. . .
February 12, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Scott is in the business of selling subscriptions. The polling part is there just to get headlines. He knows which side of the bread has his butter.
What is really amazing is the relative ineffectiveness of all this claptrap in changing the opinions of the 60% of Americans who are actually rational. It bodes well for the future.
February 12, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think what this poll and most of the rest of the polls show is that a great number of Americans are fickle and go with the whatever the daily prevailing wind might be. Republicans have a better soundbite? The stimulus bill loses support. Obama has a great press conference? The stimulus bill gains support. The majority of Americans are too buried in their own day to day existence to have the time to really sort out what they believe.
February 12, 2009 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Other than Zogby, which uses unscientific methodolgy, Ras polling has always, ALWAYS been designed to favor Republicans. I don't even now why they are still cited by anyone outside of FAUX "News". Phrasing matters in polling. A LOT. A typical Rasmussen poll is so skewed toward the right that they make Gallup, (who I believe tries to be honest), look liberal.
February 12, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seconded! As one who was polled by Rasmussen a couple years ago and who was astounded at the skewed/loaded questions re: taxes.
February 12, 2009 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
They got the general election right.
February 12, 2009 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, indeed, he did. And in terms of Election 2008, he was very accurate and consistent - once we got past the conventions, he consistently had Obama ahead by several percentage points. His final numbers were pretty close to the actual election results.
But back then he was using what was probably a pretty accurate party ID split - I think by election day, he was showing Dems with a +7-7.5 advantage. That's also what his generic congressional ballot polling showed as recently as the end of January when the Dems were ahead 42-35.
But his latest generic congressional ballot poll has the two parties at almost parity, the Dems with 40% and the GOP with 39%. I find that very hard to believe. While I don't doubt that there's been some tightening since election day and, more recently, inauguration day, there is now way that party ID in this country is the same for each party. No way. And if on top of using a likely voter model (irrelevant at this point) you're using a +1 Dem party ID advantage, you're going to get stimulus support numbers that a) look much better for the GOP and b) are an outlier.
Rasmussen's head-to-head election polling usually is good, accurate, and unbiased. His issues polling has always been a bit less reliable. He always showed HUGE support for opening up offshore drilling when he was asking that question weekly last Summer/Fall. But I remember the wording of the question was very GOP friendly. I've noticed that with some of his other issue polls as well - they're kind of leading and often don't provide enough information.
February 12, 2009 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You keep making this same post and the vast majority of people disagree with you and the evidence is completely to the contrary. Ratsmussen sucks as a polling outfit and is used solely for the purposes of right-wing propoganda. Their polling is always off by about at least 5% in the conservative direction, regardless of the person or issue. Give it up.
February 12, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rove's recent WSJ article said it all.
He praised the GOP for their work in changing the bill, like adding tax cuts for lower tax brackets and removing wasteful spending.
Then he pointed to the Pew and Ras polls, showing support for the bill was down. He referred to this as the "payoff" for Republican efforts.
In other words, GOP changes were not meant to improve the bill, they were meant to kill it.
February 12, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like how Turd Blossom wrote about the stimulus being "biggest peacetime spending increase in American history"
that's really funny, because if the Shrub was still in office, somehow I don't think he'd be writing about us being in "peacetime" now, you know, with W being the glorious wartime president and all, and if you criticize the Pres during wartime you are really insulting the privates over in Iraq
February 12, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rove should be writing his nonsense from prison, but that's another story. If the economy revives, the GOP can say whatever it wants and no one outside the hard-core 30 percent will care. If not, we face the ultimate depressing irony: the disastrous economy they created will be their salvation.
February 12, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry first for the bad english, but this is what i think President Obama should say instead and also what have not been said regarding the Stimulus Bill.
President Sarkosy of France said about PM Brown of England that he ruined his country by cutting taxes, it didn't work and it broke the entire UK economy , and now they are in a serious recession, you bet Brown did not like it, but they did that because their economy is essentially based on the banking system and consumer spending and they have very little if not less factories, manufacturies, i mean not much of industrial sector to stimulate, but unfortunately for him (Brown), it was just the truth,
Sarkosy says instead he would build bridges, hospitals, schools, revive the automobile industry, invest in science and technology, education, and that at the end of the tunnel what you have are assets, something upon which you can build up.
So instead of President Obama saying if my plan doesn't work you will have a new president as he said lat night, he should say that if my plan doesn't work, we will have assets : new schools, secure bridges, best water system, best hospitals but also assets in the people: which means better educated people, more competetive in this technology era, more healthy because of a much improved heath system, better formed people because of investment in technology and so on..., those things that we don't have now. And of Course this would create jobs, because you need teachers, workers,...
to achieve that.
As president Sarkosy said, if you give tax cut to someone, he would not spend because he is scared for his job because of the bad economy, he would keep that money for bad times in case he looses his job, in contrary if we invest in infrastructure and people, we have tangible assets but we also have assets in the people themselves. So we will be better armed and better off than today with those assets to look forward in the future if the economy does not improve and remains as it is now.
So here no gamble, in the worst case scenario we have the most important in our people and for us.
February 12, 2009 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason Rasmussen does better in election polls may just be that he has to be. I mean, there will be an election; his numbers, and the competence of his operation, will be judged against what the electorate actually chooses to do on the first Tuesday in November. So his reputation depends on his not fudging.
But there aren't elections (or referendums) on matters of federal policy. So there will never be a moment of truth, with a real number that Rasmussen's polls will be judged against.
So he can fudge those if he wants; and being a partisan Republican, he wants.
February 12, 2009 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink