About Us About Rasmussen Reports Rasmussen Reports is an electronic media company founded by Scott Rasmussen in October 2003. We specialize in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion polling information. While we’ve built a strong reputation in the field of polling, our organization is much more than that. It’s an active news organization, staffed with an editorial team that generates a daily cycle of news reports based on our original survey results. “If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls” is more than our slogan. It’s how we do business. Our polling ideas are generated at a morning news meeting and pulled from the headlines of the day. Our coverage, posted on www.rasmussenreports.com, tracks the political world, current events, consumer confidence, business topics and the president’s job approval ratings daily. To support this extensive news coverage, we conduct more public opinion polls than any other firm and in a variety of ways. Rasmussen Reports is the only firm conducting -- and covering -- both an ongoing series of nightly national tracking polls and regularly scheduled state surveys. On our site, we also post commentary and political analysis articles by writers from across the political spectrum to help readers put our research and reporting into perspective. Rasmussen Reports serves a large, well-informed and engaged audience that continues to grow. We have the largest online audience for public opinion data and a growing social media presence, with tens of thousands of Twitter followers and Facebook friends. During 2009, we passed Gallup to become the most searched-for source of public opinion information on Google. Rasmussen Reports reaches millions of visitors online - and over 200,000 subscribers - by generating original public opinion data and other information that is relevant, timely and accurate. We generate all of our revenue by selling advertising, title sponsorships and subscriptions. Rasmussen Reports data is frequently cited in the national news media and on broadcast outlets throughout the country. It also has been featured on prominent television entertainment programs such as The Colbert Report , The Tonight Show , Gossip Girl and The West Wing . We even prompted a P. Diddy rap song on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show. A Record of Accuracy Rasmussen Reports takes pride in its accuracy. We were right on the money in both the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. But it’s more than getting the final answer right that matters. Our polling is generally less volatile than other firms, and because Rasmussen Reports polls more frequently than others, we are often the first to catch major trends. In 2008, for example, we showed essentially the same result for nearly every day over the final six weeks of the campaign. In 2004, our data showed that hardly anybody changed their mind from the moment John Kerry won the Democratic nomination until George W. Bush won the election. Also in 2008, Rasmussen Reports was the first to show Barack Obama gaining on Hillary Clinton among Democratic primary voters, the first to show John McCain on top among Republicans and the first to show the massive unpopularity of the bank and auto company bailouts. In 2009, while most firms showed New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine with a modest lead in his reelection bid, Rasmussen Reports consistently showed challenger Chris Christie ahead and eventually matched his margin of victory. That New Jersey race, combined with our earlier track record, led liberal columnist Mickey Kaus to declare, “If you have a choice between Rasmussen and, say, the prestigious N.Y. Times, go with Rasmussen!” In 2010, Rasmussen Reports was the first to show Republican Scott Brown had a chance to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in the special Massachusetts Senate race to fill the late Ted Kennedy's seat. Just after Brown's upset win, the influential Washington publication The Politico said of our polling, “The overwhelming conventional wisdom in both parties … was that Martha Coakley was a lock. It's hard to recall a single poll changing the mood of a race quite that dramatically." 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 that the “(Rasmussen) poll, perhaps more than anything else, signaled that a possible upset was brewing and galvanized both the media and political worlds” and “in the two weeks after the Rasmussen poll, media coverage (of the race) picked up frantically.” 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. Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen, pollsters for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, say that Rasmussen Reports has “an unchallenged record for both integrity and accuracy.” Regarding the 2010 midterm elections, noted national political analyst Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said, “This was one tough election to poll and forecast, and no one came close to getting all the races right. But from my vantage point, Rasmussen Reports caught the major trends of the election year nationally and in most states.” One of our national trend pick-ups for the recent midterms was noticed as early as December 2009, a full 11 months before Election Day. A Democratic strategist concluded that if the Rasmussen Reports Generic Congressional Ballot data was accurate, Republicans would gain 62 seats in the House during the 2010 elections. Other polls at the time suggested the Democrats would retain a comfortable majority. The Republicans gained 63 seats in last month's elections. Also in 2010, we were the first to show incumbent Arlen Specter losing in the GOP Senate Primary in Pennsylvania which helped prompt him to switch parties and the first to show Joe Sestak catching him in the Democratic Primary. We were also the first to show Russ Feingold in trouble even against a no-name opponent in the Wisconsin Senate race. We routinely and publicly evaluate our overall survey performance in articles, most recently sharing analysis from multiple perspectives of the midterms, including Election 2010: How Did We Do?, A Look At Polling in the Toss-Up States and What’s Up With Nevada? Our readers will find our survey specifics, including our question wording, survey dates and sample sizes, all posted within the articles on our site. We also leave all of our historic polling data online, a practice followed by few other firms. Our final Senate polling findings are available for public review for 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. Our gubernatorial numbers for 2006, 2008 and 2010 are posted, too. To learn more about our methodology, simply click here. The key to Rasmussen Reports’ success, longevity and credibility has always been its independent stance. We cannot be hired to conduct a poll for anyone, and we work hard to retain objectivity in what we poll and how we cover it. But because of our track record for accuracy, we frequently get asked to do paid polling for individuals and businesses. To meet this demand, a separate company was launched several years ago, now called Pulse Opinion Research, to provide field work (interviews and processing) for commissioned surveys. Pulse licenses methodology developed by Scott Rasmussen and provides the field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys. It provides all customers with the same quality field work that we rely on every day.