Unlikely Voter

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In the North Carolina Senate race we already saw that Rasmussen Reports and Public Policy Polling are showing markedly different figures.

It looks like we’re going to see the same contrast in the Colorado Senate race, as Rasmussen showed Republicans doing well while PPP shows Democrats ahead.

Yes, it’s been a month since Rasmussen showed Republicans Jane Norton, Ken Buck, and Tom Wiens all running ahead of Democrats Andrew Romanoff and Michael Bennet. But PPP shows the mirror image of that result: both Democrats run ahead of all three Republicans.

The differences go down the line, too. Rasmussen has Colorado likely voters saying the PPACA will be bad for the country 55-37, but PPP has them opposing the plan 50-42, a 10 point swing in favor of the President.

There’s really no way I can reconcile these vastly different polls without chalking it up to assumptions which cannot be tested prior to November*. So that’s what I will do. We call can decide for ourselves who is right: PPP who appears to think 2008 represents a realignment in the American electorate, or Rasmussen who appears to dismiss the 2008 results entirely as they relate to 2010.

But for now, I’m expecting to see PPP and Rasmussen continue to disagree in any state George Bush won twice, but Barack Obama managed to swing to the Democrats.

* Yes, PPP was wrong in PA-15 and Rasmussen was right in the PA Senate Primary, but that’s not a head-to-head comparison firstly, and secondly a primary among Democrats would not be relevant to Rasmussen’s and PPP’s assumptions of the partisan makeup of the electorate. So I don’t see that relative performance as useful in favoring one of those two pollsters over the other this year.