Rasmussen on polling

An interview with Scott Rasmussen (of political polling fame) by Marvin Olasky in World...


With polls these days conducted by phone, how do you develop your call list? List selection is really critical. One reason is that people answer phones differently....At the same time, it's supposed to be totally random. So you have to have a process where you select numbers at random, and then make sure that you get enough calls from each segment of the country. It is a real challenge to set up the call lists...

Which people are more likely to respond? Women answer the phone more than men, older people more than younger people. Men will stay on longer if they are interested in the survey.

Do you use a recorded voice or a live questioner? Companies used to do polls by having a room full of people dialing up people and asking questions. We have a single voice recorded. It's played out to everybody. It's a 30-something female Midwestern voice, which we picked because we tested sports announcers, opera singers, professional announcers, anything you can think of—and a Midwestern female voice got the best response. Non-threatening, easy to understand, gives us a consistency that the operator-assisted polls can't possibly have....

Do Republicans and Democrats have different response rates? Not noticeably. The hardest group to get in touch with is moms with young children. Senior citizens are the easiest to find at home and the most willing to take a survey...Cell phones are the next big problem for us....

Some liberals have questioned Rasmussen polling of Barack Obama's popularity because you poll "likely voters" as opposed to other organizations that just poll the populace. As a result, you find less support for Obama than other pollsters tend to do. There is a consistent 3-5 point gap between our numbers and Gallup's in the presidential approval rating. The reason is the president gets great support from younger adults and from minorities who don't vote as often...