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Six of the seven cellphone-friendly pollsters have had a Democratic (Obama) lean, and in several cases it has been substantial. On average, they had a house effect of Obama +2.8. By comparison, the control group had essentially zero house effect, so this would imply that including a cellphone sample improves Obama's numbers by 2.8 points. (Or, framed more properly, failing to include cellphones hurts Obama's numbers by 2-3 points).
The difference is statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level. Perhaps not coincidentally, Gallup, Pew and ABC/WaPo have each found a cellphone effect of between 1-3 points when they have conducted experiments involving polling with and without a cellphone supplement.
A difference of 2-3 points may not be a big deal in certain survey applications such as market research, but in polling a tight presidential race it makes a big difference. If I re-run today's numbers but add 2.2 points to Obama's margin in each non-cellphone poll, his win percentage shoots up from 71.5 percent to 78.5 percent, and he goes from 303.1 electoral votes to 318.5 (EDIT: I have not changed this part of the analysis in reflection of the new numbers, as it should still get the general point across). The difference would be more pronounced still if Obama hadn't already moved ahead of McCain by a decent margin on our projections.
This could move into landslide territory quick.In South Carolina, John McCain’s lead over Barack Obama is down to just six percentage points.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the race finds McCain leading Obama 51% to 45%. Eighty-four percent (84%) of Obama voters are voting with enthusiasm for him while just 9% are voting primarily against McCain. As for McCain supporters, just 63% are enthusiastic about their candidate while 34% are voting primarily against Obama
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Date % listing economy as top issue Spread
1/21/08 39 McCain +14
5/9/08 43 McCain +7
8/23/08 48 McCain +3
9/19/08 58 ?
If I understand correctly, based on his estimate of the cell phone effect, Silver has just added 2.8 points to Obama's margin in all non-cellphone state polls. This is fine as far as illustration goes, but is a poor estimate of the real effects. The number of cell phone only voters will vary state to state as will their voting preferences.
I disagree, and think he is dead wrong.Arthur Dent wrote:http://www.contingencies.org/septoct08/mccain.pdf
Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation. -John McCain (Sept/Oct 2008 issue of Contingencies magazine)