Mark Blumenthal mark@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting
First Posted: 10-13-10 05:41 PM | Updated: 10-14-10 05:14 AM
Does it matter that many polls do not call Americans who use only a cell phone and thus lack landline telephone service?
Yes it does. It creates a growing bias that appears to benefit Republican candidates. That's the message of a new analysis released this afternoon by the Pew Research Center.
Since 2006, a rapidly increasing percentage of American households got rid of landline phone service. Landline phone services are plagued with extra taxes and fess, some of which have been around for decades. The one exception is Voice Over IP which runs over the Internet and the local cable company can install.
The most recent government estimates indicate that one in four American households is reachable by cell phone only. Pollsters have been reluctant to sample and call Americans on their cell phones, partly because it costs more and partly because federal law requires hand dialing any call placed to a cell phone. This puts cell phone polling off limits to automated survey methodologies.
For the last four years, the Pew Research Center has conducted public opinion surveys involving separate, parallel samples of both landline and mobile phones.
Before the 2008 election, they found that calling only landline phones introduced a "small but real" bias in favor of John McCain, an average bias of 2.3 percentage points on the margin on nine national surveys conducted between June and October of that year.
This year, according to today's report, the Pew Center finds that sampling only landline phones creates an even bigger bias -- "differences of four to six points on the margin" - in favor of the Republicans.
The most recent survey in the study, conducted in late August and early September, also involved comparisons based on a subgroup of "likely voters" chosen using a traditional seven question turnout scale that Gallup uses.
The combined landline and cell estimate produced a seven-point Republican advantage: 50% supported the GOP candidate for Congress in their district while 43% backed the Democratic candidate.
The Republican lead would have been 12 points if only the landline sample had been interviewed, a significant difference from the combined sample of five points in the margin.
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First Posted: 10-13-10 05:41 PM | Updated: 10-14-10 05:14 AM
Yes it does. It creates a growing bias that appears to benefit Republican candidates. That's the message of a new analysis released this afternoon by the Pew Research Center.
Since 2006, a rapidly increasing percentage of American households got rid of landline phone service. Landline phone services are plagued with extra taxes and fess, some of which have been around for decades. The one exception is Voice Over IP which runs over the Internet and the local cable company can install.
The most recent government estimates indicate that one in four American households is reachable by cell phone only. Pollsters have been reluctant to sample and call Americans on their cell phones, partly because it costs more and partly because federal law requires hand dialing any call placed to a cell phone. This puts cell phone polling off limits to automated survey methodologies.
For the last four years, the Pew Research Center has conducted public opinion surveys involving separate, parallel samples of both landline and mobile phones.
Before the 2008 election, they found that calling only landline phones introduced a "small but real" bias in favor of John McCain, an average bias of 2.3 percentage points on the margin on nine national surveys conducted between June and October of that year.
This year, according to today's report, the Pew Center finds that sampling only landline phones creates an even bigger bias -- "differences of four to six points on the margin" - in favor of the Republicans.
The most recent survey in the study, conducted in late August and early September, also involved comparisons based on a subgroup of "likely voters" chosen using a traditional seven question turnout scale that Gallup uses.
The combined landline and cell estimate produced a seven-point Republican advantage: 50% supported the GOP candidate for Congress in their district while 43% backed the Democratic candidate.
The Republican lead would have been 12 points if only the landline sample had been interviewed, a significant difference from the combined sample of five points in the margin.
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