Obama likely doing better in polls than projected

[Scriptor Ignotus]

I base this assertion largely on this link:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/570906,092307sweetforweb.article

"Those hidden souls in the Obama army Plouffe writes about are younger voters who escape pollsters because they have cell phones, not land lines. Plouffe is depending heavily on this demographic to win the Iowa caucus — if the campaign team for Obama can deliver them."


I am a 20-something professional that has a cell phone but no land line. I'm supporting Obama and will be voting for him in the primary. I suspect dozens of other supporters I know and deal with here in NYC are the same way. Extrapolate that across the city, across the county, state and country, and there probably thousands and thousands of Obama supporters not being counted. Of course, this holds true for the other candidates, but I suspect Obama claims more of these "shadow voters". The flip side is that young people are historically not as dependable a voting demographic, as say senior citizens. If Obama upsets Clinton in any of the primary states, look to this as the reason why.

[Debi]

1. I'm not saying this is true or this is false

but this is what Joe Trippi was saying about Dean in Iowa in 2004. :shrug:

[Kelly Rupert]

2. And what the media was claiming about Kerry in 2004, as well.

As it turns out, the youth vote by exit poll wasn't statistically higher than telephone polls projected.

[Debi]

4. I think Obama does have a good following of young voters

As do other campaigns.

The trick will be to get them to attend caucus/vote - which has historically been the challenge for the 18-24 year-old group.

Never made any sense to me - they'll make phone calls, knock on doors, make signs and attend rallies. But won't take that one extra step and vote or attend a caucus :shrug:

[Kelly Rupert]

7. So do I. I'm just equally skeptical

that his following will be worth something where it counts--at the ballot box.

[Debi]

9. It sucks because it's not a reflection on the campaign (unless they hardily rely

on the young people giving him attention and time) but on the young voters who don't follow through.

[jkshaw]

11. Obama has a n enthusiastic following

among us elderly, too! (74 & 77.) But how do we get the young to vote? We're planning on offering rides to the polls here, though it won't make too much difference in Utah. The younger voters need to get out in more normal states where more than 25% of the voters actually think.

[Debi]

12. Good to know!

:hi: We have quite the assortment in our household 64, 39, 18 - and all of will be attending caucus here in Iowa. The older two are undecided and the youngest has endorsed Joe Biden.

I don't know how to get younger voters to the polls, like I said upthread it makes no sense that they'll put so much energy into a cause and not follow through with a vote or attendance at caucus.

[jkshaw]

5. Yes, land lines versus cell phones

were sited in 2004 and it was encouraging to read about, but it didn't pan out.

[Dawgs]

13. Right, but are there a lot more people without land lines than in 2004?

[rinsd]

14. Dawgs see post # 6. Scriptor linked to a recent discussion by pollster (nt)

[Ethelk2044]

3. Time will tell

[Debi]

8. It will, just that it has not told a nice outcome for Democrats in the past n/t

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. Kucinich supporters were making similar claims four years ago

[Scriptor Ignotus]

6. I just found some interesting links....

regarding cell phones and pollsters. worth a read.


http://www.pollster.com/blogs/cell_phones_and_political_surv.php

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/wireless200705.pdf

[rinsd]

10. Good link, here's a couple of the charts from there

[Scriptor Ignotus]

15. thanks

I was having trouble posting the pics.

[rinsd]

17. DU actually makes pic posting very easy.

You just need the pic's location.

You find that out by clicking the right button on your mouse over the picture and selecting properties.

Copy & paste the url and bingo DU does the html heavy lifting.

For other websites the html coding is <img src="">

[flpoljunkie]

16. Mystery pollster: Cell phone only households predicted to rise to 30% in 2008.

How likely are these differences to cause error in the political polls?

We could calculate the "coverage error" that results from excluding wireless-only adults from political polls if we knew two things: (1) How the vote preferences of wireless only adults differ from those with working landlines and (2) the percentage of all likely voters with only wireless service. Unfortunately, both numbers are unknown.

Still, assume for the sake of argument that wireless adults are 5% of the electorate, that a survey of wired households shows a 48%-48% tie and that the missing wireless-only voters prefer John Kerry by a 20-point margin (58% to 38% - a pure but plausible guess based on the numbers for renters, low income, etc). If we were able to include the wireless only adults, it would change the overall preference by only one point - Kerry would lead 48.5% to 47.5%.

Keep in mind that two factors will work to reduce this small potential error: Wireless-only voters are likely to turn out at a lesser rate than those with wired phones, and pollsters typically weight to make up for overall differences in gender, age, race and education.

Of course, that's this year. Things could be very different next time. A recent study by the market research firm In-Stat/MDR estimates wireless only households growing to 30% in 2008. If that estimate holds, telephone polls will face enormous challenges in the very near future.

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/10/arianna_huffing.html

[Debi]

18. That doesn't change the fact that the younger voters

don't seem to vote.

Obama's challenge will be to get these young folks out to caucus and to the voting booths.

[DavidDvorkin]

19. And worse in the general

Because of the demonstrated reluctance of voters to display their racism, even in anonymous polling.

[Freddie Stubbs]

21. The David Duke effect:

Every time that David Duke would run for office he would get significantly more votes than what polling would indicate. It has been theorized that some who were polled were afraid to admit to those conducting the polls that they would support a racist. But when it came time to cast their ballots in the voting both, David Duke got their vote.

[DavidDvorkin]

22. Interesting

I knew about voters telling pollsters they would vote for minority candidates but then not doing so, but I didn't know about this phenomenon.

[Pyrzqxgl]

28. I think thats going to cut both ways this time around.

There will be some voters who will vote for Obama or Hillary because he's black & she's a woman.
On the other hand there are those who will vote against either or both for the same reasons. And
some of those people aren't going to necessarily tell a pollster the truth.

[rinsd]

23. The gap between pre-vote polling and actuall voting for minority candidates is shrinking.

Good article on this from Pew (though a bit old)
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/408/can-you-trust-what-polls-say-about-obamas-electoral-prospects

[illinoisprogressive]

24. My phone is thru the cable - vonage. Plus I did not vote in primaries before

[AtomicKitten]

25. I suspect answering machines severely limit the pool available for polling.

Which gives credence to this theory.

[Perky]

26. The key indicator that this is true would be to take a look at

A scientific sample or likely voters rather than the 600 member polling sample that most polls use. THesese are rarer because you have to call alot more people to get a demographically accurate sample.

Has anyone seen any split data of the top three by age? I suspect Obama wins the Youth vote as welll but I am not sure by how much.

[jillan]

27. Well that means Biden is doing better than the polls too, because

his supporters are blue collar workers.
So they are at work when the pollsters call!

:crazy:

[Colobo]

29. I got no landline and I'm for OBAMA!