Election-Campaign Law

What is the effect of cell-phone use on presidential election polling?

By Michael Alvarez

There’s a really interesting analysis by Brian Schaffner on pollster.com that Thad pointed out to me, “Obama’s Double-Digit Lead? The Cell Phone Only Difference in the National Trend Estimate.” Here’s a quick summary of his analysis:

The comparison between the two trends is remarkably consistent with what the Pew Report would lead us to expect. While the trend that includes pollsters not calling cell phones shows an Obama advantage in the 6-7% range, the trend for those reaching cell phone only respondents shows an Obama lead greater than 10%. Obama’s support increases by almost 3% in the national trend that includes polls reaching cell phone only respondents while McCain’s support decreases by about 1%.

Full post as published by Election Updates on October 24, 2008 (boomark / email).