Just this weekend I heard (for the first time ever) one pollster admit that the biggest problem this election was the number of people refusing to participate. (>5% in many polls)
When polls were created many decades ago everyone had a landline phone and they always answered.
Now a high percentage have ONLY a cell phone and many people screen their calls to the answering machine
I know when pollsters call me I have told them no, I didnt want to participate.
I think these non-participaters are goign to be for Romney more likely than not.
I agree with your statement. I have recieved so many calls starting at 8 in the AM and ending at 9PM and not once have I answered the phone (caller ID is wonderful) How many people do the same?
I think you are right on that point.
ON THIS: "Now a high percentage have ONLY a cell phone""..
Consider how many of those Cell phones belong to very young teenagers and under.
If those kids are answering the calls, they would just be playing with the pollster, but yet counted by the Dems. lol
I think you are right on that point.
ON THIS: "Now a high percentage have ONLY a cell phone""..
Consider how many of those Cell phones belong to very young teenagers and under.
If those kids are answering the calls, they would just be playing with the pollster, but yet counted by the Dems. lol
It’s been my general theory that Obama voters have time to waste.
Romney voters are busy and value constructive use of limited time.
If my theory is has any merit, then Romney voters are being underpolled.
Being in Florida, we get polled over and over and over. We have finally just said ‘no’ and hang up or don’t answer the landline, since we have no caller ID.............
While many talk about the problems of getting demographics right, party affiliation right, etc., presidential polling is far easier than survey research due to their being one and only one question and that question being clearly defined.
Do you support Obama or do you support Romeny or do you support Johnson/Goode/etc?
It is a clearly defined choice, so that means you can get a fairly accurate view of sentiment with a relatively small sample of a large population.
I hang up on all political phonecalls, polls, GOTV, just don’t want to deal with them. I made the mistake of doing a poll once, 20 minutes out of my life then apparently I got flagged as “cooperative” because I got more poll phonecalls every night for weeks. Never again.
And there are other dynamics: TIME. Dems are more likely to be government workers, students, unemployed, or on welfare. They literally live lives with more leisure time, and therefore are more likely to take the 15-20 minutes that a real poll (as opposed to a manipulative "push-poll") takes. Conservatives, which include a high mix of small business people and larger families are less likely to find the time.
AND, as a long-suffering battleground-stater (Colorado), I literally cannot be polled, because it is my practice to hang up on ALL calls that even HINT they might be political. At our house, I have received well over 400 calls this fall. I don't have time to hear all the robo-call nonsense (and can't imagine that they could possibly sway anyone's vote). Romney ESPECIALLY has been robo-calling, inoculataing many of his supporters from participating.
If a poll does not actively adjust for party affiliation, I don't see how they could be accurate. The two groups simply live very different lives.