How We Do Our Polls
Some people have questioned our findings reported Monday that Donald Trump has edged slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton among likely voters nationally. Given the margin of error, it’s more accurate to call the race a tie.
Their complaint is that because we called landline telephones for that survey we didn’t reach cell phone-centric millennials. But guess again.
All Rasmussen Reports' survey questions are digitally recorded and fed to a calling program that determines question order, branching options and other factors. Calls are placed to randomly-selected phone numbers through a process that insures appropriate geographic representation.
But, as we make quite clear on our website, Rasmussen Reports uses an online survey tool to interview randomly selected participants from a demographically diverse panel to reach those who have abandoned traditional landline telephones. We’ve been using this methodology since 2011, increasing its use systematically since then to account for the changing telephone habits of Americans.
At a time when the polling industry is struggling to maintain its credibility, we’re pretty comfortable with our results, although we can always do better.
Oh, and by the way, a new NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll echoes our latest Clinton-Trump findings. It shows Clinton with just a six-point advantage. But that survey tracks all Americans and not just likely voters, so it leans Democrat because Republicans are more likely to vote. Factor in the margin of error, and guess what?
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Rasmussen Reports is a media company specializing in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion information.
We conduct public opinion polls on a variety of topics to inform our audience on events in the news and other topics of interest. To ensure editorial control and independence, we pay for the polls ourselves and generate revenue through the sale of subscriptions, sponsorships, and advertising. Nightly polling on politics, business and lifestyle topics provides the content to update the Rasmussen Reports web site many times each day. If it's in the news, it's in our polls. Additionally, the data drives a daily update newsletter and various media outlets across the country.
Some information, including the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll and commentaries are available for free to the general public. Subscriptions are available for $4.95 a month or 34.95 a year that provide subscribers with exclusive access to more than 20 stories per week on upcoming elections, consumer confidence, and issues that affect us all. For those who are really into the numbers, Platinum Members can review demographic crosstabs and a full history of our data.
To learn more about our methodology, click here.
