The feud between pollster Scott Rasmussen and NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd flared up again Tuesday when Todd criticized Rasmussen’s polling as “slop” in comparison to NBC’s polling.
“We spend a lot more money polling than Scott Rasmussen does,” Todd said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box. “These guys are the gold standard. We spend so much money. So, it is unfair — I hate the idea their polling, which is rigorously done, has to get compared to what is, in some cases, you know, slop.”
In an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “America Live” with Megyn Kelly, Rasmussen responded to Todd’s criticism.
“You know Megyn, I don’t really know Chuck Todd,” Rasmussen said. “I don’t really follow his work, but I’m happy to have competition. Our poll, as you said, we’ve been showing this race to be close for a long time. As other polls shift to likely voter models, they’re showing the same thing. Four years ago, we showed virtually no change of the final 40 days of the campaign. We’ve shown a steady race this time. Both men have been within three points of each other 89 of the last 100 days and happy to compare our work to anybody’s.”
The feud started last month when Rasmussen, president of the polling firm Rasmussen Reports, criticized Todd for declaring that the presidential race in Florida was all but over, based on a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that at the time gave President Barack Obama a five-point edge over Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in that state.
(h/t Johnny Dollar’s Place)