538.com comments on the Rassmusen Paul/Obama poll.

“The most electable Republican in America is … um … Ron Paul?

That’s what you might think if you looked at today’s Rasmussen poll, which shows Obama leading the libertarian by just 1 point, 42-41. The ‘shock poll’ is getting its share of attention, particularly since few other polls have shown any Republicans running that competitively against Obama.

But as regular readers of this website will know, the person conducting the poll can have a profound impact on its results. Rasmussen, in particular, has had a substantial Republican-leaning house effect thus far this year. Perhaps they will turn out to be right (although their idea of trying to apply a “likely voter” model 2.5 years in advance of an election is dubious). But it would be wrong to take a Rasmussen poll (or any other) at face value without taking into account this context.”

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