I am actually in Madison, Wisconsin, right now, where I am about to speak at a regional online journalism conference. However, I just wanted to post something really quick about one reason why Rasmussen might be showing different numbers than other polling firms in the national Democratic horserace.

In Breaking Blue, Jerome argued recently that Rasmussen was including too many independents in their model:

Among all the recent polling, it's only in Rasmussen that Obama has showed competitiveness that makes it a single-digit race. That's made for a lot of puzzlement, about how Scott Rasmussen is arriving at results which are the direct opposite of every other polling outfit in the past two weeks. And it turns out, not surprisingly, to be the voter turnout model that Rasmussen is projecting.

He says, "Senator Hillary Clinton holds an eight-point lead among Democrats while Senator Barack Obama has a substantial lead among Independents who say they will vote in a Democratic Primary."

Any polling model that banks on Independents showing up to vote in a Democratic Party is a speculative turnout model, particularly in consideration of caucus states like Iowa and Nevada. In New Hampshire and South Carolina, it makes a bit more sense (but they can just as likely vote for their favorite Republican), but at least we know now where he is finding his numbers.

I agree that too many independents are included in Rasmussen's voter sample. However, I can't accept that is why Rasmussen is showing different results, simply because the entire reason I started the Inflated Clinton Poll Theory is that every polling firm is including too many people, including independents, in their survey methodology. Gallup, for example, includes about 49-50% of all adults in their samples for the Democratic primary. This is absurdly high, and obviously includes a lot of independents as well.

Without giving away tomorrow's announcement, let's consider a couple of different possibilities. First, look at two polls conducted for the Philly mayoral election at the end of April, one using automated IVR polling by Survey USA, and another using traditional, live-interviewers conducted by Susquehana (PDF). If you look at the age crosstabs of the two polls, you will note that Survey USA projected 31% of the electorate to be under the age of 35, while Susquehana projected only 17% of the electorate to be under the age of 45. That is a huge difference in the number of young voters the two polls predicted, and is generally keeping with a pattern where IVR polls pick up more young voters than do live interviewer polls (or, at least that is what Mystery Pollster told me about IVR polls the last time we talked). Obviously, any poll that picks up more young people will be more favorable to Obama, since he has consistently polled either even or ahead of Clinton among younger voters. Since Rasmussen is an IVR poll, it stands to reason that they are showing a closer campaign, at least in part, because they are picking up a higher percentage of younger voters who are generally pro-Obama. Now, I would be all ready to run with this theory, but the thing is that so few national polls on the Democratic primary release crosstabs, that it is difficult to say for certain right now.

Anyway, there are other possibilities too, including that people might say different things to machines than they do to live humans. Pollster.com's original post on this subject is still worth a read. For now, I have to talk in about fifteen minutes, before catching a plane back to Philly. More tomorrow