No independent major daily national polling firm has ever offered ordinary Americans the chance to directly support their national election year surveying so far as we know. That changes this year.
Rasmussen Reports invites Americans of all political persuasions to consider contributing to our first ever Citizen-Sourced National Midterm Election Polling Project. Managed by Rasmussen Reports and powered by Go-Fund-Me, this project will target Senate and gubernatorial races in up to 20 key national midterm election battleground states.
About the Project
Sponsorship contributions to the Rasmussen Reports Citizen-Source project will cover direct and indirect polling and reporting costs for up to four separate polling cycles for each of the designated battleground states. There will be no profits charged or accepted by Rasmussen Reports on this project. Rasmussen Reports will remain solely responsible for all polling matters including timing, questions, fielding, tabulations and reporting. Overall project contributions will be capped so as not to over-raise funds we cannot use specifically on project polling and reporting costs. This undertaking is solely about getting independent unaffiliated battleground state polling data out and into the hands of voters.
Background
As most Americans are well aware, partisan rancor stoked in large part by perceptions of media bias and “fake news” is at record levels across the nation. Voters’ distrust of established media organizations and polling from all sources is likewise off the charts.
Rasmussen Reports has not been immune from attack and as an independent and highly-accurate polling firm we have been criticized relentlessly for months. Why? Mostly now because President Trump likes the job approval numbers we’ve been reporting for him and publicly mentions them.
It’s true that our Daily Presidential Tracking Poll based on our Likely Voters screening often finds Mr. Trump’s public job approval higher than other national pollsters do. The same thing was true during the latter years of Barack Obama’s presidency, but for some reason the big media outlets didn’t have any problem with that.
However, unlike our critics and the vast majority of the 2016 pollsters and pundits that confidently predicted Hillary Clinton’s historic presidency, Rasmussen Reports told readers the 2016 presidential race was always close. Then our polling targeting the Popular Vote nailed the exact margin between the top two candidates. Our 2016 polling work also correctly informed readers that issues, not the media-fed controversies, would ultimately decide the election.
Rasmussen Reports’ 2014 full national midterm election polling results, the first under our then new management team, were also remarkably accurate: We correctly called 33 out of 36 Senate races (92% accuracy) and 32 out of 36 governor races (89% accuracy, with 2 races judged too close to call).
Select Your States
Select
Your States
Project contributors can indicate which state(s) they are most interested in by contributing through those state pages. Individual state midterm election race dynamics change frequently and Rasmussen Reports will make all final determinations of how project resources are applied. We will however remain mindful of which states receive the most and quickest contribution activity. Once all the states have been polled four times the project will be closed to further contributions. If for some reason we collect more than we need to cover our project costs, we will contribute any surplus proceeds split evenly between ProPublica and Reason. In the event that this project flops and we are unable to raise enough money to do at least some of the polling work described here, then these same two organizations will receive our unspent contributions.
No Fear or Favor
This year, just like every year, we want it clear to anyone considering a sponsorship contribution that we will favor no candidate or party, and we make no guarantees that we will get everything - or even anything - right. We do guarantee, though, that we will remain politically independent with a highly experienced bipartisan staff. Our sole goal here is consistent with what we do for our readers every day - to ignore the headlines and get the polling right.