NYcarbineer
Diamond Member
...by Rasmussen himself.
It's in the wording of the questions:
From Pollster.com:
Different Question - Rasmussen also asks a different job approval question. Most pollsters offer just two answer categories: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?" Rasmussen's question prompts for four: "How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President... do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he's been doing?"
Scott Rasmussen has long asserted that the additional "somewhat" approve or disapprove options coax some respondents to provide an answer that might otherwise end up in the "don't know" category. In an experiment conducted last week and released yesterday, Rasmussen provides support for that argument. They administered three separate surveys of 800 "likely voters, each involving a different version of the Obama job approval rating: (1) the traditional two category, approve or disapprove choice, (2) the standard Rasmussen four-category version and (3) a variant used by Zogby and Harris, that asks if the president is doing an excellent, good, fair or poor job. The table below collapses the results into two categories; excellent and good combine to represent "approve," fair and poor combine to represent "disapprove."
As you can see, when Rasmussen asks the questions in the manner almost everyone else does, he gets results in line with everyone else, but when he asks the questions in his own unique manner, he gets an anti-Obama shift.
See? I told you so (repeatedly).
Pollster.com: Why Is Rasmussen So Different?
It's in the wording of the questions:
From Pollster.com:
Different Question - Rasmussen also asks a different job approval question. Most pollsters offer just two answer categories: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?" Rasmussen's question prompts for four: "How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President... do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he's been doing?"
Scott Rasmussen has long asserted that the additional "somewhat" approve or disapprove options coax some respondents to provide an answer that might otherwise end up in the "don't know" category. In an experiment conducted last week and released yesterday, Rasmussen provides support for that argument. They administered three separate surveys of 800 "likely voters, each involving a different version of the Obama job approval rating: (1) the traditional two category, approve or disapprove choice, (2) the standard Rasmussen four-category version and (3) a variant used by Zogby and Harris, that asks if the president is doing an excellent, good, fair or poor job. The table below collapses the results into two categories; excellent and good combine to represent "approve," fair and poor combine to represent "disapprove."
![2009-11-30_rasmussen-experiment.png](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pollster.com%2Fblogs%2F2009-11-30_rasmussen-experiment.png&hash=5616daf9372f3cdb3fb0c7e575635b6a)
As you can see, when Rasmussen asks the questions in the manner almost everyone else does, he gets results in line with everyone else, but when he asks the questions in his own unique manner, he gets an anti-Obama shift.
See? I told you so (repeatedly).
Pollster.com: Why Is Rasmussen So Different?