EXCLUSIVE: Rasmussen Reports Talks Polling in the Final Weeks of the

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Earlier this week, AtlasIntel, which was the most accurate pollster during the 2020 election cycle, released its latest survey results, and they were weird, to say the least. While the survey showed Donald Trump beating Kamala Harris by three points nationally in a full field, suggesting a potential landslide in the Electoral College, its battleground state polling suggested a much closer race. Its state polling literally showed a potential 269-269 tie in the Electoral College.

It was hard to reconcile the disparity between Trump’s three-point lead nationally with the closer race on a state level, and even some of the state results were strange.

In the hopes of getting to the bottom of this bizarre poll, as well as the state of the race with the election two weeks away, I spoke with Mark Mitchell of Rasmussen Reports. The first thing I wanted to know was how AtlasIntel could have such strange results. According to Mitchell, there are difficulties associated with state polling.

“State polling is hard, something that I even struggle with, though less than most MSM pollsters.” While he expressed confidence in AtlasIntel’s national numbers, he believes that the battleground polling will likely need recalibration after the election. According to him, national polling is more reliable due to the larger, more representative sample sizes available, making it easier to analyze trends.

Another issue that has troubled me recently is how political analysts from the left and right are looking at the same polling data and seeing good news for their side. Mitchell cut through the noise.

He argued that most predictions of a massive Trump win are based on the reasonable expectation that “polling aggregates lean left” but emphasized that both sides will use mental gymnastics to remain optimistic. “The real story, in my opinion, will be how bad the collapse is probably going to be in MSM narratives.” As an example, he pointed out that Kamala’s planned visit to Texas to campaign is “not a good sign for them.”

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Mitchell also commented on the apparent convergence of polling data, as more pollsters seem to be aligning with Rasmussen’s consistently stable numbers. He didn’t mince words: “The ones that aren’t innocently bad polling, highly subject to left response bias, have determined they are no longer able to carry Democrat water and are trying to salvage credibility.”

I asked Mitchell which states he would advise Trump to focus on most heavily in the final weeks of the campaign if he were advising him.

“Pennsylvania, North Carolina. Period,” he said, noting that Trump appears to be comfortably ahead in Georgia and Arizona but could still throw in Michigan and Virginia to keep Democrats on the defensive.

Early voting returns have become a hot topic on social media in recent weeks, with people trying to decipher their significance. While Mitchell sees some value in analyzing these returns, he admits that he doesn’t have the time to dive into them, as his focus remains on polling. He does predict, however, that Democrat firewalls in early voting won’t be as strong as in previous years, especially compared to 2020, which he views as an outlier.

The conversation concluded with a critical question: will the polls in 2024 be as off as they were in past elections? Mitchell’s answer was straightforward: “I don’t think they will be as bad because the late-race Trump surge is already happening. But I still think it will be one to three points too left on average.” In his view, mainstream pollsters remain biased against Trump, which he attributes to a broader resistance to “Trumpian politics.”

“Just look at how bad pollsters are sandbagging his favorability compared to Gallup as a benchmark!” he told me.

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