As most Americans are well aware, partisan rancor stoked in large part by perceptions of media bias and “fake news” is at record levels across the nation. Voters’ distrust of established media organizations and polling from all sources is likewise off the charts.

Rasmussen Reports has not been immune from attack and as an independent and highly-accurate polling firm we have been criticized relentlessly for months. Why? Mostly now because President Trump likes the job approval numbers we’ve been reporting for him and publicly mentions them.

It’s true that our Daily Presidential Tracking Poll based on our Likely Voters screening often finds Mr. Trump’s public job approval higher than other national pollsters do. The same thing was true during the latter years of Barack Obama’s presidency, but for some reason the big media outlets didn’t have any problem with that.

However, unlike our critics and the vast majority of the 2016 pollsters and pundits that confidently predicted Hillary Clinton’s historic presidency, Rasmussen Reports told readers the 2016 presidential race was always close. Then our polling targeting the Popular Vote nailed the exact margin between the top two candidates. Our 2016 polling work also correctly informed readers that issues, not the media-fed controversies, would ultimately decide the election.

Rasmussen Reports’ 2014 full national midterm election polling results, the first under our then new management team, were also remarkably accurate: We correctly called 33 out of 36 Senate races (92% accuracy) and 32 out of 36 governor races (89% accuracy, with 2 races judged too close to call).