WTF is going on with Real Clear Politics???

[SKKY]

They have Biden's numbers, both national and battleground tanking. Current national is 6.5% for Biden, Battleground is 2.9%. That doesn't seem to jive with most recent polls.

[Tom Rivers]

1. RCP is a republican, right-leaning outfit

People need to see it for what it is. Check their Wikipedia page for more info on them. I remember their numbers looked worse for Obama in 08 and 12 than other sites. I'm wary of anyone in the media who relies on them, such as Kornacki and MSNBC.

[redstatebluegirl]

6. I am convinced Kornacki is a Republican operative.

As far as Real Clear Politics, they are truly gop hacks.

[Cracklin Charlie]

11. Agree

Both points

[kimbutgar]

20. Yes I am in agreement with you

He bugs the crap out of me and I swear he seems to root for repukes in his forecasts on tv. I switch off the channel or fast forward when he comes on.

Yesterday on AM Joy when he came on Jonathan Capehart had a wtf look on his face when Kornacki did his spiel.

[NurseJackie]

27. A gay Republican makes zero sense to me at all.

[Hortensis]

15. Yup, working to save McConnell & co from themselves. nt

[oregonjen]

2. Interesting. NHK used Real Clear Politics in their reporting for their

7pm broadcast, which is 4am PST.

[LonePirate]

3. First, RCP is a right-wing, conservative output organization.

Second, they have been using a lot of Trafalgar, Rasmussen and other questionable polls. Those polls are bringing down Biden’s numbers. Other orgs have been excluding those highly suspect polls or down-weighting them. RCP treats them equally with other polls.

[Mike 03]

32. I had no clue about RCP being right leaning.

Before I learned about 538 I always used to check RCP. This is a revelation.

[LonePirate]

36. See this link

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/real-clear-politics

The key passage on this page is this snippet which appears in bold after scrolling just a little:

Overall, readers will get a mixture of left-wing and right-wing views when visiting RealClearPolitics.com, so the site gets a Center bias rating; however, the team agreed that content on RealClearPolitics' "Articles" section has more of a Lean Right bias.

[jcgoldie]

4. Look at the articles they post daily

Their political slant is obvious.

[lagomorph777]

9. It was years before I actually noticed their headlines.

They are crazy far-right. I don't bother going there anymore.

[Mike 03]

33. I didn't really notice either.

This thread is a real wake up call for me. I was clueless about the politics of RCP.

[VMA131Marine]

5. It doesn't mirror 538 either

Biden is +8.5% in their national average with no evidence of significant tightening.

[Dennis Donovan]

7. RCP is right wing - they're ratfucking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealClearPolitics

RealClearPolitics (RCP) is an American political news site and polling data aggregator formed in 2000 by former options trader John McIntyre and former advertising agency account executive Tom Bevan. The site features selected political news stories and op-eds from various news publications in addition to commentary from its own contributors. In 2008, the founders said their goal was to give readers "ideological diversity" in its commentary section. RCP has been described as right-of-center. The site publishes aggregation of polling data during election seasons.

-snip-

The 2012–2013 edition of academic text Cengage Advantage Books: American Government and Politics Today, Brief Edition describes the site as being run by conservatives, and containing "opinion pieces from multiple media sources".

An October 2019 article in The Daily Beast reported that Real Clear Media manages a Facebook page of "far-right memes and Islamophobic smears." Anand Ramanujan, Chief Technology Officer for Real Clear Media, responded that the company created the website that was affiliated with the Facebook page "as part of an effort to understand the flow of traffic from social media—particularly Facebook—to political websites."

-/snip-

[Mike 03]

34. Thank you.

I can't believe I hadn't really noticed this. Usually I would go straight to the polling aggregations.

[lagomorph777]

8. They never jive; they are far right. It took me years to notice the headlines on their home page.

It looks like Brietfart or OANNanism.

[AmericanCanuck]

10. They include Trafalgar polls in their averages

Trafalgar is a republican outfit that releases fake polls. This screws up RCP's results.

[ooky]

12. I'm treating new polls at this point as pretty much meaningless now.

95 million have already voted and minds are made up. This cake is baked.

[uponit7771]

25. ..👍🏼, unless 100 million more people vote tommorow thier polling is of little factor

[ooky]

42. 100 million with made up minds not too different from polls released in the last few days.

Time to start the counting and I believe we are going to like the count.

[Rice4VP]

44. Exactly

[KentuckyWoman]

13. We have no idea how it will go.

Biden WILL get the popular vote.
Electoral college looks good but I'm mentally prepared for Trump to steal it. In spite of the fact that is a very long shot.

I've seen predictions Biden winning so big it will leave Trump pitching a hissy in the bunker. I've seen predictions Trump could legit eek out an electoral college win in spite of losing popular vote. I've even seen one where they are a dead heat and it comes down to MAINE.

We are all pulling noise out of our own ears trying to shine up the crystal ball. Grab your fav beverage, find a comfy chair, and hang on for the ride. That's all we have.

[Thekaspervote]

14. They don't weight their polls like 538. The Economist pollster has nothing good to say about RCP

I don’t even look at them..they aren’t accurate

[Drunken Irishman]

16. Lots of people dismissing RCP but they're pretty accurate in their averages.

It's entirely possible Biden wins the popular vote by 6.8 points. It's also ridiculous to call that tanking.

But people need to realize RCP has proven pretty accurate in the past.

In 2016, their average had Hillary winning by 3.2, she won by 2.1.

In 2012, their average had Obama winning by .7, he won by 3.9.

In 2008, their average had Obama winning by 7.6, he won by 7.3.

In 2004, their average had Bush winning by 1.5, he won by 2.4.

The only year they were off was 2012, and most national polls were off then too.

I don't know if RCP has changed a lot over the years but these numbers are pretty strong.

[cilla4progress]

18. You are providing us with

Some really substantive data and I APPRECIATE YOU!!

[Polybius]

26. Obama really outperformed the polls with last-minute voters in 2012

My guess is that the swing was Republicans who were gonna vote Party-line, but switched because Obama was so good. There was no reason to not vote to re-elect him.

[Drunken Irishman]

30. I think his response to Sandy helped a lot.

He was very presidential and a leader during a crisis. His being very friendly with Republican Christie didn't hurt, either.

He also benefited from the final debate. I think it brought back a few voters who were turned off by his first debate performance. That debate, like this year, was a little over a week before the election.

2012 was basically a reverse of 2016. Whereas in 2012 the late deciders went to Obama in a close election, giving him a larger than expected win, in 2016, the late deciders went to Trump, giving him a surprise victory.

The good news about 2020 is that it's nowhere near as close as 2012 and there are not near as many undecided voters as 2016.

[Polybius]

31. I remember a few friends who are Democrat's criticize that hug

They are like "why hug the enemy?" But it turns out it helped Obama a lot with some Republicans. They saw that he was a good human being that had no hate toward them.

[BadDog40]

17. I don't understand why 538 still weighs Rasmussen

They've been putting out Trumps approval at 55% and have been claiming Trump has 40% of African American support for months.

[jcgoldie]

29. He uses it for more data

They publish polls everyday he adjusts for the bias but the argument is that seeing rasmussan go from say 50-48 trump to 50-47 Biden over the course of a few days is a meaningful trend even if the raw numbers are slanted.

[Roland99]

19. They included new RIGHT WING OUTLIER Rasmussen and IBD/TIPP poll assumes trump gets MORE black votes

than in 2016

[SKKY]

21. And there is a snowball's chance in hell of that happening.

[Dr. Jack]

22. Counter point: Who cares what's happening at RCP?

They don't have a great track record and they are a Republican media outlet.

[RGTIndy]

23. As long as "The Trafalgar Group" gets factored in, it will skew things.

That's not by accident.

[Yavin4]

24. It's Rasmussen pulling down the average.

They have Biden at +1 which is laughable. No one else has any where near close that number.

[Baclava]

28. The horses are nearing the starting gate, gotta drive up last minute ticket sales, place your bets!

[shrike3]

35. I looked at the number, which factored in Trafalgar and Rasmussen.

Very low numbers.

[Azathoth]

37. They're including GOP pollsters...and the race is getting tighter

I've been saying for months anyone who thinks Biden will win by 8-10 points is deluding themself.

Trump, despite everything over the last four years, is going to get at least 45%-46% of the national vote, and it will be even tighter in the battleground states. That's the hard truth about this country.

[Willto]

38. Nothing....

that hasn't been going on with them for the past 20 years. They are a bunch of right wing shills and they always have been.

[octoberlib]

39. Real Clear Politics includes Rasmussen, Trafalgar and polling by Trump's

Super Pac in it's aggregates. It's full of all kinds of shit , partisan polls.

[Happy Hoosier]

40. They don't weight polls.

Crap quality partisan-esque polls count as much as high-quality polls.

[BGBD]

41. They are using junk

There are some shady RW pollster like Rasmussen, InsiderAdvantage, and Trafalgar putting out a bunch of junk state polls in the past couple days, all showing Trump +2....almost every single one of them shows the exact same result regardless of sample size, state, etc. There aren't many people giving them much attention, because they are indeed junk, but RCP uses them and it pushes better pollsters out of the average, so you get this stuff. Each of these pollsters are run by republican operatives with ties to Hannity.

It doesn't matter though, you shouldn't be using RCP for anything other than looking up historic cycle polls anyway.

[clutterbox1830]

43. Stop using RCP. They always tilt Republican.

Just use 538 or the Economist. Those site are more detailed, informative, and generally more accurate anyways.
If you want polling use 270towin. I stopped looking at RCP and better off. No longer need to support republican websites.