Do Barack Obama and Ron Paul supporters have cell phones?
October 15, 2007 | 3 Comments
Presidential primaries are drawing near and pollsters are dialing up homes from New York to Los Angeles to test which way the political wind is blowing. But who is picking up the phone?
More and more people are dropping their land line in favor of a cell phone only, and so cannot be reached through traditional telephone polls. Articles on Nolan Chart and NPR suggest that this is impacting poll results, and that some candidates (i.e. the Ron Paul and Barack Obama camps) believe that their supporters - young, single, and cell phone savvy - are underrepresented.
Market research that we completed in August of this year (see note at the end of post) supports this trend. We asked people if they felt that they didn’t need a land line as well as a cell phone. We found that as with many technology shifts, the younger you are the more likely you are to agree. Nearly half (48%) of adults under 25, and 43% of adults under 35 agree that they don’t need a land line, but for people over 35 the proportion drops to 24%.
Pollster.com explains why pollsters don’t call cell phones and what impact this has.
Our research looked at opinions and trends; many other reports and articles have focused on the current state of the market.
A federal study released by the CDC in May of this year supports the trend away from land lines, and shows that young adults are leading the path. This year one-quarter of adults under 25, and nearly 30% of those between 25 and 29, live in a cell phone only household. Over half of all adults living with unrelated roommates do not have a land line. The general population comes in at 13%, and that number grows about 2 percentage points per year.
Another study from Mediamark Research Inc. corroborates this figure, and shows that this year for the first time there are more households with only a cell phone than there are households with only a land line.
So 27% say that they don’t need a land line, but only 13% of households don’t have one. Why the gap? There is almost always a gap between opinion and action; a lot of people have a land line for Internet access, not voice; and a lot of those young people are living in households with land lines, even if they don’t think they need one themselves. But the trend is clear, and so is the impact on polling.
Our study was conducted in August 2007 over the Internet (not by telephone). The base was 1,000 US adults. The research was for our own service so we won’t be publishing all the results, but stay tuned for more.
Posted by: Dan
Categories: Mobile Market, Featured
3 Responses to “Do Barack Obama and Ron Paul supporters have cell phones?”
Carrington Ward, Queens, NY on October 16th, 2007 2:35 pm
The other question is whether cell-phone users with land lines are systematically less likely to be available for polling at home.
Dan on October 16th, 2007 4:34 pm
Yes, that is a good point.
Even before the cell phone, I would guess that younger adults were out of the home more, and less likely to receive the pollster’s call. Now, its easier than ever.
Also, in general, people travel more today than in previous generations (work, pleasure, school, etc.), and mobile devices reduce additional barriers to travel.
Even if someone has a land line, they might not even use it for calls (internet), or they might just use it as a backup if they live in an area with spotty coverage.
Kahuna on October 17th, 2007 7:57 am
As the owner of a cellular asset in the US and abroad, we launched a business unit specific to political SMS mobile alerts. All Federal, State, and Local candidates need to upgrade the way in which they reach the voting ear.