Pew: Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update
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  Pew: Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update
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Author Topic: Pew: Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update  (Read 2586 times)
cinyc
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« on: October 14, 2010, 05:44:28 PM »
« edited: October 14, 2010, 10:08:27 PM by cinyc »

Pew: Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update

The latest estimates of telephone coverage  by the National Center for Health Statistics found that a quarter of U.S. households have only a cell phone and cannot be reached by a landline telephone. Cell-only adults are demographically and politically different from those who live in landline households; as a result, election polls that rely only on landline samples may be biased. Although some survey organizations now include cell phones in their samples, many -- including virtually all of the automated polls -- do not include interviews with people on their cell phones. (For more on the impact of the growing cell-only population on survey research, see "Assessing the Cell Phone Challenge," May 20, 2010).

It is possible to estimate the size of this potential bias. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducts surveys with samples of landline and cell phones, which allow for comparisons of findings from combined landline and cell interviews with those only from landline interviews. Data from Pew Research Center polling this year suggest that the bias is as large, and potentially even larger, than it was in 2008 (See "Calling Cell Phones in '08 Pre-Election Polls," Dec. 18, 2008).

In three of four election polls conducted since the spring of this year, estimates from the landline samples alone produced slightly more support for Republican candidates and less support for Democratic candidates, resulting in differences of four to six points in the margin. One poll showed no difference between the landline and combined samples.

In the Pew Research Center's latest poll, conducted Aug. 25 to Sept. 6 among 2,816 registered voters, including 786 reached by cell phone, 44% said that if the election were held today that they would vote for the Republican candidate for Congress in their district or leaned Republican, while 47% would vote for the Democratic candidate or leaned Democratic. Among the landline respondents, 46% preferred the GOP candidate and 45% the Democratic candidate, a four-point shift in the margin. In this survey, both estimates would have shown a close race between Republicans and Democrats.

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We'll have to wait until November to see if this really matters.  Nate Silver suggests that it might not for the pollsters who weight their samples, like SUSA and Rasmussen.  Pew said there was a smaller Republican bias in the 2008 polling due to lack of cell-only sampling, yet it didn't really show up in the final results.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2010, 09:22:25 PM »

It probably won't be a big deal this year, but the cell phone issue will continue to grow until it has Dewey Defeats Truman potential in a few years. 
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memphis
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« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2010, 09:59:04 PM »

Surprised only a quarter of households are cell phone only. I would have thought more.
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Meeker
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« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2010, 12:17:37 AM »

Has there been any discussion of how we're going to solve this problem in the long run? Eventually landlines will go away (probably within a few decades). How do we conduct polling then?
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2010, 12:28:56 PM »

then we call cells.
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cinyc
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« Reply #5 on: October 20, 2010, 12:32:14 AM »


Or perfect Internet polling, which with the advent of Smartphones may end up being done via cell phones anyway.
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