Polling: The Cell Phone Question
Posted Sep 25, 2008 at 9:21 AM by Maurice Berger
Do pollsters under-represent younger voters by excluding from their samples voters who use cell phones exclusively? Pew Research seems to think so: After including cell phone-only households in three recent polls, the organization notes "a virtually identical pattern is seen across all three surveys: In each case, including cell phone interviews resulted in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain, a consistent difference of two-to-three points in the margin." PollTrack wonders: why then did many public opinion surveys during the Democratic primary season routinely OVER estimate Obama's actual support? And to what extent are pollsters' attempts to weight their samples to correct this deficit solving or adding to the problem? Another question: how do we evaluate Pew's reported discrepancy if the election is not until November and there are no hard results against which to gauge their polling estimates?
