Despite Barack Obama's recent surge in the polls, the media maintain -- as they have throughout the summer -- that the race is close, and will be so on Nov. 4. And that may be true.
But imagine if Obama's upward climb in opinion polls right now were not just a few points. Imagine if it were seven or eight or more.
The media narrative might be clear: unfolding landslide. With that would come the momentum, the fundraising potential, the kind of late-election heat on the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket that can induce panic.
And given recent insights into polling data and cell phone users, it's entirely possible that the only thing between a decisive Obama lead coming into October and more election-as-nail-biter boilerplate is the vast leftwing wireless network.
The Pew Research Center's recent report on the issue asserted that polling by landline telephone may undercount Barack Obama voters by perhaps 3 percent. It's one of the first pieces of conclusive evidence on the issue. But this is a young science, in a rapidly changing communications landscape where mobile-only households are multiplying. So who knows if that's undercounting the undercounting?
Statistically, Obama voters are more likely to be part of the younger, cell-only set. Cell users under 30 go left in a big way: 62 percent Democrat to 28 Republican. And cell-only voters of all ages go for Obama over McCain by 19 percent, 55 to 36 percent, according to Pew's most recent survey.
However, the Pew report points out that previous weighting techniques by pollsters assume that cell and landline users are the same politically. So many landline polls this year may have relied on faulty math.
A few poll organizations, such as Gallup and Pew itself, have been including cell phones in their surveys all year. Others, like NBC/Wall Street Journal and ABC/Washington Post, just started recently, according to Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com.
Since the issue of a cell phone/landline gap first surfaced in the 2004 campaign, the problem of properly measuring opinion in a mobile age has been debated among pollsters and media wonks. The John Kerry campaign claimed its voters were being undercounted because some of them were cell-only, and exit polls confirmed that. But cell-only voters then represented a meager 7 percent.
Some states now have at least 16 percent of households reporting cell-only usage, more than twice the rates reported in the 2004 election. And that estimate is based on 2007 data. Many of the swing states in which the '08 race will be decided have high numbers of cell-only households: Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, among others. (See Brian Schaffner's discussion of cell phone-use and states at Pollster.com.) So, that could boost the case that the mobile phone gap could be playing a big role this year.
Of course, conventional wisdom holds that younger voters are less predictable as to whether they will actually show up to the polls, and the Pew report flags that issue. Young voters also won't represent the same force in a general election as they did in the Obama-mania primary, as their power is diluted by sheer numbers.
Yet the implications of the cell phone gap could stretch even deeper, perhaps into psychological territory. Everyone knows that '08 should favor Democrats and Obama, if history and issue-oriented surveys are any guide. And yet, as the mantra goes, the McCain-Obama race remains "close."
This is at a more speculative level, and this is where empirical data fails, but it's worth saying: a "close" campaign also feeds the notion that voters are just unsure or "undecided" about Obama -- whether on legitimate issues like his years in office, or other dubious ones.
And those undecided voters are now squarely in the spotlight. Their opinions on Obama's character may indeed decide this election.
Polling guru Mark Blumenthal recently dissected a group of 973 undecided voters and their views on whether McCain or Obama was "more prepared to lead the country." The result: McCain favored 52 to 18. For sure, "prepared" may mean just that -- ready to go, or seasoned by experience. But as has been endlessly discussed in this campaign, such vague language may also serve as a proxy for any number of other issues in voters' minds with regard to Obama. It's where a kind of subterranean logic can operate: a lot of other people are unsure about Obama, so I should be, too.
As David Moore demonstrates in his new book The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls, surveys have a way of "manufacturing" a climate of opinion and shaping a public mood. The echo chamber of popular opinion has a way of reinforcing itself. (For a chilling anatomy of a polling nightmare, see Moore's first chapter on polls and the lead-up to the Iraq War.)
That is not to say that the cell phone polling gap is the only factor restraining Obama from coasting to a win. But with momentum at a premium in elections, and this one in the home stretch, it's worth considering that Obama's lead may be artificially dialed back by the demographics of his biggest fans.
I also haven't been polled ever in my adult life. probably because I have only ever had a cell phone.
were a geniune concern then your fear would be having a religous leader
at the helm. When you talk about pleeding down, it's hard to get much
more less a reaction than say -- the Catholic church...
As far as the rest of your post, you come off as insincere to me.
When he votes for something with an expense in it and he's a tax raiser
and a big spender. When he votes against something in favour of
something else nearly identical... He's "against" the thing he's voting
for in just a different format.
Common, how about authentic dialogue.
Paulie
They will be in polling stations in force, armed with lists of recently foreclosed addresses. Their aim is to make sure that those recently kicked out of their homes are subjected to the further indignity of having their votes invalidated. Lower-income home owners are both more likely to vote Democratic, and more likely to have been recently evicted, than upper-income voters. Thus, by targeting lower-income districts, Republicans can be pretty sure the votes they challenge are Obama votes.
The challenge rules were intended to defend against voter busing, not to rook unfortunate citizens out of their one real say in governance.
The current batch of lobbyist-directed Republicans, led by Karl Rove, have nothing that I would refer to as morals. They are in it for sheer power and advantage, and don't give a hoot for a functioning democratic republic.
They don't care who they step on to get into power, either. Today it's people who can't make their house payments. Tomorrow it's YOU.
Anyone can poll-watch and take notes. Consider taking Tuesday, Nov 4 off of work, to ensure at least that Republican poll-watcher's activities are monitored. If you do this, keep a list of the addresses that are challenged, if only so that those lists will be available to non-fascists.
Pollsters weight based on previous years' turnout. If Blacks across the country don't come out in larger numbers to elect the first Black US President, I would be stunned. That makes Virginia, North Carolina and possibly Georgia even more likely pick ups for Obama, and can't hurt him in Florida.
What in the hell is the matter with our?? democrats....Looks as if they have no concern over the republican corrupted policies to stop democrats from voting and deleting them at the voting polls , when their is no one to stop them.
Again the republicans will steal the election and after months have gone by , their corruption will leak out one drop at a time....
This disregard for counting cell users begin to pick up momentum as the conversation increased on the blogs. Now in the final days of the general, when they've made their monies on ratings/advertisers the media (in anticipation of a possible landslide by Obama) is now trying to cover their a$$es by reveling that cell phone users have been overlooked and in the polls that have included such Obama's numbers could be skewered by a minimum of 3% and possibly as high as 8.
The bloggers/youth voters/cell users were NEVER fooled - we knew the media was in it for the monies and to keep their ratings high. Shame Shame Shame but then what you do in the dark will come to light.
Another aspect of this is the different way that people use phones. Long gone are the days when I'll just answer the phone 5-8pm in the evening. If the caller id doesn't show me a familiar number, or if the number is blockedr, I'll just let the answering machine deal with it. This is a rule with me on my cellphone all the time. If the number is blocked I NEVER answer the call. If they've got something to say, they'll leave a message.
In my experience the people more likely to use this approach are younger, more comfortable with technology. (I'm 56, so can remember the first cell phone I ever saw, as well as the first answering machine.) More likely to be Obama voters? I think so.
The point is that polling organizations don't leave call-back messages.
In
Cell users under 30 go left in a big way: 62 percent Democrat to 28 Republican. And cell-only voters of all ages go for Obama over McCain by 19 percent, 55 to 36 percent
There's no assumption on the articles part, only an assumption on yours.
So I would bet there is quite a gap in polling, at least in the last 10 yrs with cell-phone onset.