Nate Silver: Obama’s Lead Looks Stronger in Polls That Include Cellphones

[Doctor Jack]

Nate Silver does some philosophizing n his latest article about whether the large number of pollsters out there not calling cellphones is skewing results towards Romney; in other words, showing this election being somewhat close when it actually isn't. He points out that 1 out of 3 house holds now have no land line phones. Pollsters that also poll cellphones show much more favorable results for Obama that ones that don't (think Rasmussen).

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/obamas-lead-looks-stronger-in-polls-that-include-cellphones/

[Sekhmets Daughter]

1. yep

I gave up my land line 8 months ago and was called last week...I was a very enthusiastic Obama supporter.

[CTyankee]

2. I am happily relieved...

[Doctor Jack]

3. I haven't had a landline in years

And almost no one I know still does. I think one of my grandmas still does and that is it. My brother and sister don't, my parents don't, none of my friends do, none of my cousins do, and most of my aunts and uncles are land line free these days. I bet there is an entire generation of people now that don't even know what a land line phone is. It is ridiculous to think that ignoring cell phone only homes is giving an accurate picture of the demographics of this country. It isn't 1997 anymore. Things have changed.

[railsback]

4. Well, yeah.

Outfits like Ras strictly use landlines. Gallup, I don't know what the hell is going on over there - former employee, now whisleblower Michael Lindley made some pretty startling allegations about Gallup trying to rip off the government, so I wouldn't trust their numbers at all. They say they use both land lines and cell phones, but the breakdown is a mystery.

I believe only my mother in law has a land line in her house. The rest of this giant family are all cell phone users.

[cr8tvlde]

5. Youth grew up mostly with just cell phones...glad the pollsters are catching up.

I'm still trying to figure out what an "app" is...well, not really, but I don't have any handy. But after almost 50 years with a land line, I don't have one. It's a paradigm shift comparable to the computer.

Like when was the first time you called someone and realized that you had to ask "where they were" or did not automatically know, based on the phone number? That was not in the lexicon. That's a paradigm shift and it dates you.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

6. This is not philosophizing...

It's an acknowledged phenomenon in polling that polls that exclude cell phones tend to under-report the Democratic vote. Voters who have no landline tend to be young and they tend to vote Democratic.