Well, tonight’s forecast is for a Trump Storm on social media. A real meltdown is coming and it will be hotter than lava from a volcano eruption. Rasmussen is marginally considered a solid enough pollster that their results are included in aggregate polling – those that show averages from different well-known polling outlets. Yet they have a well known tendency to be a quite conservative leaning outlier. That’s why when Rasmussen releases a polling result that is brutal to Trump it’s a big freaking deal.
This is a poll that will freak Trump the ***k out. Worse, it directly compares him to Biden and he comes out on the losing end, and by outside the poll’s margin of error. And the poll was by conservative friendly RASMUSSEN! I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine an epic meltdown from Trump during the night to come. However, as reported by Newsweek he’s going to be trying to process news that will scare the hell out of him! A year ago Trump promised everyone (and MAGA of course believed it) we’d all soon be living in a ‘Golden Age.’ (More gold. Ugh) Well, it turns out people think they’d be better off if BIDEN had been in charge this past year, and by a 48-40 margin. (the poll’s margin of error is 3%)
I don’t what to bore you with what I learned in my university years but yes, I had to learn research and statistics and how important it is to construct good questions that would yield good data. A poorly formed question, where accidently so or intentional to shade the results winds up producing junk data/results. Political pollsters know this as well as anyone, and also know how to subtly phrase a question to get the desired result. Reliable outlets throw open their surveys to those who want to do a deep dive into what questions were asked and how well they were constructed. A truly talented pollster of questionable ethics can cleverly skew results, which is something Rasmussen has been accused of to bolster the GOP.
Sorry for all that but it’s important for what I have to say next. The linked article includes the actual question Rasmussen asked. Granted, my formal education (and experience) in research was more decades ago than I care to admit but the question seems to hold up to all the ‘validity’ constructs a good research question should ask:
“Comparing Donald Trump to Joe Biden, which one has done a better job as president? Or are Trump and Biden about the same?”
As I’ve already said Biden came out on top by a 48-40 margin. The linked article goes into other outlets producing similar numbers, and also discussion of that Trump promised ‘Golden Age’ and how it’s clear voters, even it seems conservatives don’t think he’s delivered. It’s not difficult reading and worth a couple of minutes of your time.
Yes, Biden spanks Trump’s fat white butt 48-40 but that only adds up to 88%. Remember that third part of the question that gave respondents a choice of ‘about the same?” Twelve percent seem to have chosen that option. Without saying so specifically they too are saying we are NOT in some Golden Age, and whether it was Biden or Trump in the WH things would still pretty much suck. That too is bad news for Trump. Especially with, as I’ve heard on news today him claiming things are great because he made the economy ‘his.’ I wonder how many GOP Congress Critters gulped and said “Oh SH*T” at that! Especially given the context in the linked article:
Trump had promised a “Golden Age” for the U.S., including a booming economy, thanks to his policies on immigration, tariffs, and cutting government waste. The Rasmussen poll released Tuesday showed that ahead of the midterms, the president may have some work to do convincing voters that age is here.
In January 2025, 52 percent of voters felt the new era was beginning. Of those surveyed this past week, 27 percent said the Golden Age had arrived, but 58 percent said it had not
In the end this poll by an outlet known for painting a rosier-than-reality picture for Republicans will be setting off alarms throughout the GOP. Deep down they know if anything, things will get worse for their chances in November as the year progresses. Their only hope is to cheat but even their push for the appallingly named SAVE Act is running into trouble. Senator Murkowski has come out firing broadsides against it and pointed out how she and her colleagues criticized Democrats during Biden’s term for trying to exert too much federal control over elections.
For our part Trump has telegraphed his punches. Lot’s of legal talent is at work in every state to protect the vote, and organizers from national down to local are well aware of Trump’s desire to provoke an incident that would give him an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act. If we continue to fight hard he won’t be able to do it.
If I worked for Trump or had to work anywhere near him tonight I think I’d slam my arm in a door. A trip the ER followed by a night in the hospital and the whole dealing with the healing might be better than being in Trump’s vicinity tonight.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
Personally, the question was a bad one since, had Drumpf lost in November 2024, we’d be living under President Kamala Harris, not President Joe Biden.
Now, if Rasmussen had used Harris’s name and the results were still 48-40 in Harris’s favor, THAT would lead to a massively epic melt down on Drumpf’s part. (Although, it’ll still be interesting when Drumpf’s handlers/baby-sitters explain to him that, even with that 3-point margin of error in Drumpf’s favor, Biden still comes out on top by 45-43.)
I thought about addressing your point about Harris but I have so often been accused (admittedly sometimes with justification) of complicating things, and/or digging too far into the weeds.
Yes, in the end the election was between Harris and Trump but Biden remained President until Trump was sworn in. Getting into what might or might not have changed had Harris become President muddies the waters. It was Biden’s administration and economy that was handed over to Trump. Enough people bought into what Trump claimed during the campaign about things being worse than they were (not that it was great for average folks but it was getting better) so doing an apples to apples comparison of how things were when Biden left office and how they are now is I maintain a valid thing to measure. It’s for that reason I say the question was properly contructed.