The first and most profound way cellphones are changing American politics is through polling.
“We think the polls this year seriously underestimate the Obama vote,” legendary pollster Stan Greenberg said in a video posted on The Carville-Greenberg Report Monday.
“A majority of Hispanics are cellphone-only; 4 out of 10 African-Americans are cellphone-only. Young people, of course, are mostly cellphone only,” Greenberg explained. This greatly complicates polling since only live pollsters call cellphones.
“You know, if you’re reached on a cellphone, you’re 11 points more likely to be voting for President Obama,” Greenberg said.
Greenberg isn’t the only one who has observed the president’s mobile advantage. The New York Times’ poll guru Nate Silver has noted the same phenomenon and suggests that polls that include cellphones tend to be much higher quality.
A second way cellphones are changing the political landscape is through donation by text.
President Obama’s campaign was the first ever to accept donations by text. Governor Romney’s campaign joined him shortly thereafter. Though carriers capped the amount of donations an individual could give through this method, it proved to be highly effective for the president.
Early estimates suggest that Obama outraised Romney by a 500-to-1 ratio via text message. This helped the president catch up with the Republicans on fundraising and presents a unique opportunity.
You know reading that, and I have posted similar information about cellphones before, should give all of us a lot of hope that even as the Republicans are attempting every dirty trick in the book to steal this election, that the numbers, just like in 2008, will be too much much for them to overcome.
By the way I have to give a big ole hat tip to my pal Dennis Zaki who was the first person, and this is going way back to the beginning of the year, to tell me not to trust the polls and that they will not reflect reality so long as they leave out cell phones. He has said over and over again, that nobody seems to be aware of just how many people in this country are cell phone only users.
And do you know what? I think he is most likely right on target.
Breaking! Mitt may be in deep Sh*tt!
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/b9emvnv
karma?
Then thank you both, b/c I'm having nightmares about this election!
ReplyDeleteI've been pretty confident of this one since 5/2/2011, but now I am starting to work on 2016.
ReplyDeleteGo O'Malley 2016!
100% correct.
ReplyDeleteThis is so true! I only use my cell phone, and like many cell phone users, I don't answer numbers I don't recognize.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the polls DO use cellphones but they might be calling too many landlines. Like Gallup uses a 50/50 split of cellphones vs landlines. Rasmussen does NOT use them.
ReplyDelete1-Pollsters DO NOT call cell phones for polls, because it is ILLEGAL for pollsters to call cell phone,
Delete2-Also cell phones are NOT listed in the directory, so pollster can not call them if they wanted to.
This WAS VERIFIED to me by my cell phone service provider.
Romney to be charged with ethics violations in regards to the auto bailout.
ReplyDeletehttp://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17613-uaw-charges-romney-with-profiteering-from-auto-bailout
It is about time.
DeleteGood! I would dearly love to see that asshole do his flop sweat act in a court of law.
DeleteThe people at Delphi (which used to be A/C Spark Plug) are my husband's ex-coworkers and friends. We got out of Flint when A/C was still A/C, but all of the folks that Willard's buddy "retired" from Delphi had their pensions SLASHED. The pension fund was mysteriously depleted after the bailout. So, they lost their jobs, then lost a big chunk of the pensions they paid into for decades. Lives shattered. And the Romneys walk away with millions.
Cell phones tell you whose calling, so pollsters won't ever be able to get cell phone users to answer. Polling as an industry is doomed.
ReplyDeleteNot only blacks and Hispanics, but most whites have cell phones only, too.
ReplyDeleteI've been working at an Obama phone bank off and on since April. I've noticed that if I call from my personal phone, people are more likely to pick up than if it says "Unknown Caller" on their Caller ID. Even with that, I am lucky to get 2-3 conversations out of 10 because most phones are disconnected or the people are not home/don't answer. About 1 in a 100 will call me back, asking why I didn't leave a message. (We weren't supposed to.)
ReplyDeleteThat said, the OFA (Organizing for America) ground game is stunning. I'm in Texas and we have been calling voters in Florida, cleaning up the data bank in real time as we go.
Now we are in the "Get out the Vote" mode, meaning we are calling Obama supporters to make sure they have voted, or have thought about making plans to go vote.
You can go to www.barackobama.com, register on "Dashboard" and start making calls yourself from home. It is really easy; just give it a try!
By 2016, the only way to reach a majority of voters is to hope they'll answer the door IF you can find enough people to pound the pavement. The problem is all the traditional promotion techniques are being eliminated. Mailers just simply are discarded on the trip back from the mailbox. E-mails are sent to the spam folder. Calls from unknowns are ignored. Web based ads are easily obscured.
ReplyDeletePolitics is theater. And the modern audience can/has turned off and dropped out.
It might be that the 2016 presidential winner will be determined by the best viral video.
Newly 50, white female here, cell phone only, like many of my friends my age and older.
ReplyDeleteJust received a robo call from Boney Boo Boo herself!
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke. I saved it (no more answering the phone due to excessive pollster and political calls) and she DOES NOT say to vote for Romney. Or any candidate by name. Also think she forgot to say the words Republican and Democrat.
Anyone else getting these calls? I'm in a swing state.
US Presidential Election Winner Betting Odds
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oddschecker.com/specials/politics-and-election/us-presidential-election/winner
Barack Obama to be re-elected President in 2012
ReplyDeletehttp://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=743474
I've said this for years as I have been landline free for several years. (And I'm an old white lady.) I figure that the reason that Romney is even close is that the pollsters are calling old white people on their land lines.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Obama will win re-election in a landslide.
another old (sixty-something) white lady who only uses a cell phone and doesn't answer unrecognized numbers. I do have a land line which i NEVER answer, it is there only to call my cell phone when i misplace it or if my 8-yr-old grandson visits so he has a way to call 911 if i collapse.
ReplyDeletethe only person i know who is voting (maybe) for romney is my ex, unless our daughters' tireless efforts to persuade him to write in ron paul have an effect.
hope it's a landslide for President Obama, but i don't rule out dirty vote-flipping tricks by the rethugliKKKans once again in states like florida and ohio.
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ReplyDeleteMy husband and I are both pushing 60, and we haven't had a landline for years. Skype and cell. I'll bet the pollsters don't take wireless VoIP into account, either.
ReplyDeleteWe've got cell phones, but my husband needs a land line his company pays for, he works from home and gets a lot of overseas calls. On average, he gets two to three robo calls a month and rarely gets polls.
ReplyDelete