Ed at Hot Air is asking some tough questions about the recently popular pro-Obama meme that cell phone users are being under-counted by pollsters. As it happens, Pew ran the numbers on this in mid-2007:
The good news is that none of the measures would change by more than 2 percentage points when the cell-only respondents were blended into the landline sample. Thus, although cell-only respondents are different from landline respondents in important ways, they were neither numerous enough nor different enough on the questions we examined to produce a significant change in overall general population survey estimates when included with the landline samples and weighted according to U.S. Census parameters on basic demographic characteristics.
Potential caveats:
(1) The views of cell-only users are different enough to swing polls by one or two points. So as long as the race remain close, there might be a genuine skew in the data. On the other hand, it might be washed out by both the Bradely Effect and by the same kind of differential nonresponse that skewed the 2004 exit polling.
(2) The Pew study goes on to say that cell-phone only users may cause distortions within specific subgroups – especially in polls of young adults. But that demographic is already pretty far in the tank for Obama, so I’m not sure how much distortion there could be. And it’s a subgroup of a subgroup. And they don’t show up on election day anyway.
(3) The numbers were crunched in the middle of last year and, as always, things may have changed.
I still think that the electoral map – to say nothing of right direction/wrong direction, disproportionate unemployment in swing states, etc – is insurrmountably grim. But – in what should be a shock to absolutely nobody – election day will not be decided by a bunch of under-polled kids who decide to show up and vote.
References:
* Will cell phones rescue Barack Obama? [Hot Air]
* Young voters to have impact
Previously:
* Turns Out, The Devout Republican Evangelical Governor Of Alaska Has A Soft Spot For Israel
* Massive Study Proves Push-Polling Works, Takes It As Proof That Conservatives Are Dumb
* Stupid Polling Tricks
