Democracy Corps and Rasmussen Reports 2010 Polls

11/25/2009, by Proloy Bhatta

HIGHLIGHTS

• Democracy Corps: Dems 48%, GOP 43%.
• Rasmussen: GOP 44%, Dems 37%.
• Poll of Polls: Dems 44%, GOP 42%.

According to Democracy Corps, Democrats are ahead 48% to 43%. But Rasmussen Reports also released their generic ballot results and found that Republicans are ahead 44% to 37%.

This is what RR had to say:

Support for the Republican party held steady from last week, while support for Democrats dropped slightly. Republicans have held the lead for over four months now. Voters not affiliated with either party continue to heavily favor Republicans, 44% to 20%.

Democrats were ahead in five of the seven generic ballot polls to come out this month -- each by five or more points. But some aggregators are reporting the 2010 race as being dead even. Even I did. In fact, if you average the past five polls as Real Clear Politics does (they did not include Research 2000 as I have), their average is Democrats 44.8%, Republicans 44.4%.

By nature, the RCP average looks at the five latest polls. And by doing so, they put a lot of stress on Rasmussen Reports and Gallup by eliminating two polls that have Democrats ahead.

If you were to only look at the most recent polls -- you would have to eliminate the Gallup poll because that was conducted more than two weeks ago -- Democrats are ahead by 3%.

But this is really all just presentation. You can not necessarily change these numbers but you can pick and choose which ones to report and get an average that best suits you. For example, some aggregators like Polling Report do not include Rasmussen Reports as a pollster -- which would make the Democrat lead comfortable.

So if you want a dead heat tie as RCP has, use their method. If you want Democrats to continue hanging on for dear life use my method. If you want to show Democrats ahead, eliminate Rasmussen Reports as a pollster.

Rasmussen Reports gets a lot of flack for being a partisan Republican pollster but their election polls have been spot on.

In the end, there is no such thing as a generic ballot. 2010 will come down to each of the individual races.