Politicians, these days, appear to magically conjure ever-more-surprising poll-results to support their perspectives. In fact, surveys are used to justify everything in our increasingly divided nation - so why is it so easy to create a poll in your favor? The answer, notes Washington Post's Reid Wilson [2], is not in over-sampling partisan perspectives - the problem is that Americans are changing the way they communicate. Simply put, if you want to produce a survey that tilts distinctly Republican, call landlines only. If you want to produce a Democratic-skewed poll, stick to cell phones.
Most political polling these days is seriously skewed. But the problems with polling aren’t oversamples of partisans bending results to one side’s preferred perspective — the problem is that Americans are increasingly changing the way they communicate.
Traditionally, pollsters have gauged voter or consumer opinions by calling their targets at home.
...
But voters aren’t waiting around by their clunky old landlines anymore... more than half of us either don’t own a landline phone or don’t use their phone as their primary means of communication. Today, we live on our cellphones.
[3]
Those who use cellphones look remarkably different, demographically speaking, than those who use landlines. More than 60 percent of adults under age 45 use only their cellphones, Stryker reported, using data collected by the CDC, versus just 13 percent of those 65 and older. Hispanics are much more likely to rely solely on their cells than any other race.
...those who own only cellphones are much more likely to lean towards Democrats than those attached to landlines. Cell-only respondents leaned toward Democrats by 11 percentage points; those who answered surveys on landlines leaned toward Democrats by just 2 percentage points.
The implications are clear: If you want to produce a survey that tilts distinctly Republican, call landlines only. If you want to produce a Democratic-skewed poll, stick to cell phones. If you want a survey that accurately represents the views of the modern electorate, controlling for the percentage of cellphone-only users is just as important as making sure your sample accurately reflects gender, race and education breakdowns of the broader population.
So, in summary, as Wilson notes:
when evaluating a poll, after checking the partisan breakdown, be sure to check just how much of a given survey was conducted among cellphone users. It’s another grain of salt one should use when gauging the electorate — and the accuracy of any given survey.
Unless, of course, the results fit with your exiting bias - in which case celebrate them!?