[Winstonm]

https://www.huffpost...4b093f07cada517

Quote

Kari Lake had lost Arizona's 2022 governor's race by thousands of votes, falsely declared that she'd been robbed, and was trying to overturn the election results in court when, finally, she was declared the winner of the race in March.

But not by Arizona's millions of voters. Rather, well-known pollster Rasmussen Reports announced that, actually, a majority of its survey respondents claimed to have voted for Lake over Gov. Katie Hobbs (D). Not only that, Rasmussen Reports said — it was an eight-point blowout in Lake's favor.

[Gilithin]

 Winstonm, on 2023-July-14, 09:51, said:

https://www.huffpost...4b093f07cada517

It's a great marketing strategy, perfectly targeting their key audience. I suspect they will easily make back the costs of doing the article against future subs and resulting higher ad revenue. Last I checked, 538 used a standard GOP-5 point adjustment to Rasmussen polls with a low-accuracy weighting, so this one is not so far from their norm and has the highly useful effect of grabbing attention. Don't take it too seriously, it's just business.

[kenberg]

Also Philadelphia won the Super Bowl, the Titanic did not really sink, and I proved Fermat's Last Theorem. And Julius Caesar was killed by Calipurnia for messing around with Cleopatra. I'll hire a pollster and prove it.

[Gilithin]

 kenberg, on 2023-July-14, 12:14, said:

Also Philadelphia won the Super Bowl, the Titanic did not really sink, and I proved Fermat's Last Theorem. And Julius Caesar was killed by Calipurnia for messing around with Cleopatra. I'll hire a pollster and prove it.

Like these? #7 on that (2014) list looks particularly prescient in light of later events.

[Winstonm]

 Gilithin, on 2023-July-14, 12:39, said:

Like these? #7 on that (2014) list looks particularly prescient in light of later events.

Land of the free and the home of the truly dumb.

[Gilithin]

 Winstonm, on 2023-July-14, 13:10, said:

Land of the free and the home of the truly dumb.

I would say Land of the capitalist. As I was saying in the first response, if you examine the actions of companies like Rasmussen, Fox and the like through the lens of their business model, all the apparent stupidity makes perfect sense.

[Winstonm]

 Gilithin, on 2023-July-14, 15:08, said:

I would say Land of the capitalist. As I was saying in the first response, if you examine the actions of companies like Rasmussen, Fox and the like through the lens of their business model, all the apparent stupidity makes perfect sense.

I would call it unbridled capitalism.

[pilowsky]

 kenberg, on 2023-July-14, 12:14, said:

Also Philadelphia won the Super Bowl, the Titanic did not really sink, and I proved Fermat's Last Theorem. And Julius Caesar was killed by Calipurnia for messing around with Cleopatra. I'll hire a pollster and prove it.

Surely Fermat won the Superbowl?

[johnu]

 Winstonm, on 2023-July-14, 09:51, said:

https://www.huffpost...4b093f07cada517 [size="3"]

A key point about the poll:

Quote

The news from Rasmussen Reports, which was based on an unprecedented 1,001-person poll taken four months after the election, was the boldest claim yet from the pollster, heralding a miraculous supposed 92% turnout rate in the election — rather than the certified rate of 62.56%.

Some more stats, Minnesota had the highest voter turnout in the 2020 presidential elections with 80%, Arizona had a middling voter turnout of 65.9%. Of course, Rasmussen doesn't let people in their poll vote more than once (or do they)???

Congratulations Rasmussen poll participants for your 1000% honesty and integrity in accurately recording your actual vote in 2020.

[mycroft]

Many years ago, I did outbound market research. We had expected return rates that ranged from 0.5/hr for complicated, nasty surveys to 2 or 3/hr for easy ones. Two exceptions: the one I was hired for, which was asking millionaires to spend 45 minutes talking in detail about their money strategies (0.2/hr - so if you got one in an 8-hour day, you weren't too much below average!)(*) and our political polls, which were about 4-5/hr. Those were easy; despite the "common wisdom", it's *easy* to get Americans to talk politics with random strangers.

I did realize early on that they felt a bit like push polls and I wasn't terribly happy about that(**). Eventually I did a quick search on the company we were doing overflow for. Yes, it was the R entity. And then I read the company web page and realized *why* it felt like push polls...

Crappy job. Horrible. 100% turnover per *month* was considered average in the industry. Still better than telesales, by a huge margin, though. Whether you want to help them or not, please treat them well. Which includes "if you aren't going to do it, say 'thank you, no' *and hang up*." It's better for you, because they're trained that if you're still on the phone, you're still convertible (and I did, more than once). It's better for them, because they can get onto the next call, who might say "yes".

But it got me (back) into IT, which got me into a good job in IT, which got me where I am now...

(*) We did pay them for their time on that one, *if they qualified*, which took 5 minutes itself. That was also a problem (including "I get more than that sitting at my desk"). However, *every person* who went through the survey with me at one point at least said "I didn't know about that" or "I'll have to talk about that with my accountant." Which I bet was worth much more than what we were paying...
(**)I also learned that for many races, a single candidate would be nominated by multiple parties (usually "Democratic" and some other (like "Farmers and Workers")). For more than one would expect races, a single candidate would be nominated by "the Democratic and Republican parties". And yes, I got several "you didn't read that right, surely?" or "that can happen?" on the D+R ones.