Pew Study on Cell Phone Only users and Surveying (optimistic news)

[rinsd]

by Scott Keeter, Michael Dimock and Leah Christian, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
September 23, 2008

Current polling in the 2008 presidential election shows a very tight race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. In part because of the strong support Obama is attracting among younger voters, and as the number of Americans who are reachable only by cell phones rises, interest continues to grow in the question of whether public opinion polls that do not include cell phones are accurately measuring the relative levels of support for the two candidates.

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has conducted three major election surveys with both cell phone and landline samples since the conclusion of the primaries. In each of the surveys, there were only small, and not statistically significant, differences between presidential horserace estimates based on the combined interviews and estimates based on the landline surveys only. Yet 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.

For example, in Pew's latest poll, conducted Sept. 9-14 with 2,509 registered voters, including 549 reached by cell phone, 46% backed Obama and 44% backed McCain. Among the landline respondents, the candidates were tied at 45% each. The same 2-point differential is seen if the analysis is restricted to likely voters - in this case, the candidates are tied in the combined sample, while McCain has a two-point lead among landline respondents.

Similar differences were seen in August and June. In August, Obama led by 3 points (46%-43%) in the combined sample of registered voters, while the landline sample showed the race tied at 45% each. In June, Obama led by eight points (48% to 40%) in the combined sample, and by five points (46% to 41%) in the landline sample alone. In all three cases, the overall horserace differences between the landline and combined samples are not statistically significant, but adhere to the same pattern.1

As implied by these results, in each of the three polls, the cell-only respondents were significantly more supportive of Obama (by 10-to-15 percentage points) than respondents in the landline sample. For example, in the September survey Obama led McCain by a 55%-to-36% margin among cell only voters, but the candidates were tied at 45% in the landline sample.



http://pewresearch.org/pubs/964/

[blogslut]

1. kick

Thanks. I dig PEW studies. This is good news.

[Laurab]

2. Lots of people I know have only cell phones and...

every single one of them is voting for Obama - I'm surprised the margin isn't higher.