Scott W. Rasmussen (born 1955 or 1956[1]) is the founder and president of Rasmussen Reports. He is an American political analyst, author, speaker, and public opinion pollster.[2] Earlier in his professional life he co-founded the sports network ESPN, and is currently president of the Methodist Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, where he resides.
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From an early age, Rasmussen was exposed to the broadcasting business through his father, Bill Rasmussen, who had worked for radio stations and was a communications director for the New England Whalers ice hockey team.[3] With the help of his father, Scott taped his first radio commercial at the age of seven.[4] He spent summers with his grandparents at the Jersey Shore and got his first job at age 14 as an umbrella boy.[5] He later served as an announcer for the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association.[6] During that time he was emcee for hockey legend Gordie Howe's 50th birthday celebration in 1978, which Rasmussen cites as a career highlight: "nothing in my professional career will ever equal the thrill...".[7] In 1979, Scott and Bill Rasmussen founded ESPN,[8] the cable sports network. Their stake in ESPN was bought out by Texaco in 1984.[1] They went on to found the Enterprise Radio Network.
Rasmussen graduated from Minnechaug High School in 1974 and was goaltender for the high school hockey team.[9] He started college at the University of Connecticut, and took a class with pollster Everett Ladd.[10] Rasmussen went on to earn a bachelor's degree in history at his father's alma mater, DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, graduating in 1986,[11] and later an executive MBA from Wake Forest University.[1]
Scott Rasmussen is best known for his public opinion polling work. In 1995, he founded a polling company called GrassRoots Research.[1] In 1999, after changing the name to Rasmussen Research, the company was bought by TownPagesNet.com for about $4.5 million in ordinary shares.[1]
In 2003, Scott Rasmussen founded Rasmussen Reports, which has the largest online audience for public opinion data[12] and a social media presence with tens of thousands Twitter followers and Facebook friends. According to his official biography, Rasmussen "has been an independent public opinion pollster since 1994."[13]
The Washington Post referred to Rasmussen as "a driving force in American politics" and "an articulate and frequent guest on Fox News and other outlets, where his nominally nonpartisan data is often cited to support Republican talking points."[4] In the Wall Street Journal, conservative columnist John Fund called him "America’s insurgent pollster”.[14]
Law professor Susan Estrich has said, “If you really want to know what people in America think, you can't find a smarter guy to ask than Scott Rasmussen."[15]
Rasmussen is spokesperson for his firm's polling data and is a guest analyst on local and national broadcast news outlets across America and internationally, including the Fox News Channel, the BBC CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC and NPR. In 2010 he made an appearance on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report.[16] He is also regularly quoted in print and online publications.[17] including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times.
According to the firm's website, Rasmussen and his company "takes pride in its accuracy."[18] His poll prediction for the 2000 Presidential election was off by 4.5%,[19] compared to the average 1.1% margin of error most other national polls gave at the time.[19]
For Election 2004, "Rasmussen...beat most of their human competitors in the battleground states, often by large margins." according to Slate magazine.[20]
According to Politico, "Rasmussen’s final poll of the 2008 general election — showing Obama defeating Arizona Sen. John McCain 52 percent to 46 percent — closely mirrored the election’s outcome."[21]
In 2010, Rasmussen Reports was the first to show Republican Scott Brown had a chance to defeat Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race. Just after Brown's upset win, Ben Smith at Politico reported, "The overwhelming conventional wisdom in both parties until a Rasmussen poll showed the race in single digits in early January was that Martha Coakley was a lock. (It's hard to recall a single poll changing the mood of a race quite that dramatically.)"[22] A study by Boston University and the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism about how the Massachusetts Senate race was covered in the media concluded, "...Rasmussen Report’s poll that showed the overwhelming Republican underdog, Scott Brown, climbing to within single digits (nine points) of Martha Coakley. That poll, perhaps more than anything else, signaled that a possible upset was brewing and galvanized both the media and political worlds."[23] The New York Times Magazine opened a March 14 cover story with a scene highlighting the impact of that poll in an internal White House meeting involving President Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.[24]
After the 2010 midterm elections, Scott Rasmussen was citied by political statistician Nate Silver as the least reliable and most biased pollster of the 2010 cycle.[25] Silver noted that Mr. Rasmussen's polls "exhibited a considerable bias toward Republican candidates." Silver explained that, on average, Rasmussen polls missed the actual margins by a considerable 5.8 points and his polls maintained an average bias of 3.8 points towards the Republican candidate. As a result of his erroneous polling, Mr. Rasmussen picked the wrong winner in 4 Senate races of the 2010 cycle; Nevada, Colorado, Alaska and Washington. In the Hawaii Senate race, Rasmussen's results missed the actual margin by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in Nate Silver's polling database.
As of 2010, Scott Rasmussen is the President of Rasmussen Reports, LLC (a separate company that he founded in 2003[13]). Rasmussen Reports generates a daily cycle of news reports based on original survey results.[26] The results, posted on www.rasmussenreports.com, track the political world, current events, consumer confidence and business topics. The company is one of only two firms providing daily tracking updates of the president’s job approval ratings and consumer confidence.[27] The company conducts an ongoing series of national tracking polls on a nightly basis and regular state surveys. Rasmussen has said that his firm conducts more public polls than any other firm and makes its money by selling advertising, title sponsorships and subscriptions.
Rasmussen’s polls are frequently quoted by media sources, political figures, and has received mentions on entertainment shows such as the Tonight Show As a guest analyst Rasmussen has appeared on a number of news broadcasts, including the Fox News Channel, the BBC, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), CNBC and local TV stations, and cited in major print and online outlets.[17]
Rasmussen's polls are notable for their use of automated public opinion polling, involving pre-recorded telephone inquiries. These types of polls have been shown to produce accurate results at low cost, but some have doubted their reliability.[28] In 2004 Slate magazine said they “publicly doubted and privately derided Rasmussen” polls because of the methodology.[29] However, after the election, they concluded that Rasmussen’s polls were the most accurate.[30] Rasmussen’s reported job approval ratings for President Obama[31] are typically several points lower than Gallup’s. He says this is because Gallup polls all adults and he polls likely voters. Tony Snow, White House press secretary for President George W. Bush, attacked Rasmussen’s polling on the War in Iraq.[32] More recently, Democrats have attacked his polling on President Obama’s Job Approval Rating[33] and other topics.[34] Time has characterized as a "conservative-leaning polling group".[35] A quote from Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia posted on the Rasmussen homepage reads,"Rasmussen produces some of the most accurate and reliable polls in the country today."[36]
Rasmussen has described himself as "an independent pollster" who "[l]ike the company he started, [...] maintains his independence and has never been a campaign pollster or consultant for candidates seeking office."[37] The Center for Public Integrity lists Scott Rasmussen Inc as having been paid $95,500 by the Republican National Committee and $45,500 by the George W. Bush presidential campaign in 2003-04.[38]
At the end of the 2008 Presidential election, there were eight national tracking polls and many other polls conducted on a regular basis. Polling guru Nate Silver reviewed the tracking polls and said that while none were perfect, and Rasmussen was "frequently reputed to have a Republican lean", the "house effect" in their tracking poll was small and "with its large sample size and high pollster rating [it] would probably be the one I'd want with me on a desert island."[39] After the election, Rasmussen's poll was rated as the most accurate, when compared to various other final pre-election polls. By 2010, however, Silver's opinion of the Rasmussen polls had changed, concluding that the likely voter model was insufficient to explain the increasingly large "house effect".[28]
Republicans often use his polling to make their arguments. “Republicans right now are citing our polls more than Democrats because it’s in their interest to do so,” Scott Rasmussen said in 2009. “I would not consider myself a political conservative — that implies an alignment with Washington politics that I don’t think I have.”[34]
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Democratic pollsters and FOX News contributors Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen (a coauthor of Rasmussen) remark, "...recent attempts by the Democratic left to muzzle Scott Rasmussen reflect a disturbing trend in our politics: a tendency to try to stifle legitimate feedback about political concerns—particularly if the feedback is negative to the incumbent administration."[40]
In August 2009, Rasmussen Reports announced that it had received a “major growth capital investment.”[41] New Jersey Business magazine reported that the company grew its staff later that year.[42]
Scott Rasmussen has written books and numerous political commentaries.
While his writing is mostly known for its analysis and commentary on public opinion, often based on his firm's polling data, Rasmussen's 2010 book In Search of Self-Governance seems written from a personal viewpoint, including quotes like “Americans don’t want to be governed from the left, the right or the center. They want to govern themselves."[43] Rather than citing polling data, Rasmussen makes a case that America's "historic commitment to self-governance is under assault by a governing clique revolving around Washington, D.C. and Wall Street" and argues that "unfortunately, even after more than 200 years of success, there is an urgent need to defend this most basic of American values."[44]
Later in 2010, Rasmussen wrote in a more typical analytical style as he co-authored a book on the Tea Party movement with pollster Douglas Schoen, Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System, published by HarperCollins.[45] The bailouts of big banks in 2008-9 by the Bush and Obama administrations triggered the tea party’s rise, said Rasmussen in September 2010. He added that the movement's anger centers on two issues, "They think federal spending, deficits and taxes are too high, and they think no one in Washington is listening to them, and that latter point is really, really important."[46][47] In the book, Rasmussen and Schoen argue for a three step proposal that they call "the last hope" for politician to regain trust.
Rasmussen and Schoen also collaborated on several op-ed columns, including One Nation Under Revolt,[48] Why Obama Can't Move the Health Care Numbers,[49] The Last Hope for Democrats and Republicans to Regain Trust,[50] and Obama Is Losing Independent Voters.[51] They also noted the decline in the president's approval ratings in Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth.[52]
Rasmussen has independently authored several Wall Street Journal columns, including a piece on how Obama won the White House by campaigning like Ronald Reagan[53] and an overview of the healthcare reform debate.[54]
Additionally, his work has appeared in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Investor's Business Daily, The Christian Science Monitor and other major publications.[55]
Scott Rasmussen was a weekly columnist for conservative news web site World Net Daily in 2000/2001.[56] In some of these columns, as well as in a 2001 book titled "A Better Deal! Social Security Choice" and a presentation at the Cato Institute, Rasmussen advocated privatization of the Social Security program.[34][57][58] Social Security reform had already been the topic of an article that he published in the Wall Street Journal in 1990.[59]
Rasmussen wrote Mikhail Gingrich for The New Democrat,[60] published by the Democratic Leadership Council, and claimed that "Like Gorbachev before him, Newt is a pseudo-revolutionary." The Democratic Leadership Council is a group of centrist Democrats whose goal is to make the "Democratic party more moderate, rather than more liberal".
Rasmussen is a professional speaker, traveling the country to discuss public opinion on politics, business and lifestyle issues.[61]
Rasmussen is president of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a not-for-profit religious corporation with historic ties to the United Methodist Church and the Wesleyan tradition. The Camp Meeting founded the town of Ocean Grove, New Jersey, in 1869 and maintains a Christian seaside resort community. Rasmussen grew up spending summers in Ocean Grove, living with his grandparents, and participating in the Camp Meeting programs.[62]
Under Rasmussen’s leadership, the Camp Meeting has grown, a reversal of long-term trends. Attendance at Camp Meeting events has increased and finances have improved significantly [63] and the group is now developing a ten-year growth plan in anticipation of its 150th anniversary.
In 2007, a controversy arose after Camp Meeting denied requests by local lesbian couples to hold same-sex civil union ceremonies in a boardwalk pavilion owned by the Association.[64] Scott Rasmussen justified his decision to deny one such request in March 2007 stating that the Association would not permit the use of its facilities for purposes in conflict with United Methodist Church policy, which he said "recognizes marriage only in terms of a covenant relationship between one man and one woman".[65] Another lesbian couple, whose request was denied in April 2007, filed a complaint under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, on the grounds that Camp Meeting "routinely permitted the public to use its Boardwalk Pavilion for weddings and other events", which was dismissed because Rasmussen had already decided to discontinue this public rental practice two days before the denied request was made.[65]