Muscatine

"There are polls other than to predict voter sentiment.   In those adults might mean something."

Well, what a wizard!  Sheesh....you still don't get it. The only thing regarding election/voter polls that matters, is who is going to vote and how.

Distrust of all main stream media has hit a new high anyway, as of this week. This just in this week:

Gallup also again confirmed that three times as many recognize a liberal bias than perceive a conservative tilt:

Nearly half of Americans (48%) say the media are too liberal, tying the high end of the narrow 44 percent to 48 percent range recorded over the past decade. One-third say the media are just about right while 15 percent say they are too conservative.

Most telling: While Republicans have the least trust in the news media and are the most-likely too consider the media “too liberal,” independents are much closer to Republicans than Democrats: 61 percent of independents don’t trust the media and 45 percent call the media “too liberal” compared to just 15 percent who say the media are “too conservative.”

The Rasmussen poll was conducted to predict voter sentiment - thus they polled "likely voters" - not all adults. I don't understand what you don't understand about that process. If a survey were to find out what was the best tasting coffee, they would ask coffee drinkers - not just anyone walking down the street. If the survey was to determine the best steak in town, they would not include vegans in the survey. So if you are trying to determine how voters might vote, you ask persons most likely to vote . Got it?

I'll try to spell it out one more time.

My original post was to show how Newsmax structured their report to give the impression the Democrats suffered a major defeat but in actuallity the poll indicated the Republicans suffered an even greater defeat.   Though neither was actually really, really significant.

My second point is polls can be deliberately misleading without deliberately altering the results.   You can change the results by the segment of the population you poll.   Somewhere I gave the example of polling Bloomington Township or the fourth ward.  They would give very different results.   You can do it by geography, age, econmic status, and a host of other criteria including registered voters, likely voters or eligible voters.  I'm also suggesting that is why Rasmussen polls consistently are biased towards the right.

That's not a difficult concept.

If the "Republicans suffered an even greater defeat", you have nothing to worry about do you? 

 You also posted: "I'm also suggesting that is why Rasmussen polls consistently are biased towards the right". 

Rasmussen is NOT consistently biased towards the right!

If you can show a statistically meaningful consistency, please do so.

Rasmussen reflects the current, and past (in trend data), thoughts of the likely voter.  No more and no less.

Rasmussen has a reputation for honesty and accuracy.  And is one of the most respected poll sources.  

You just don't like the current outcome.