The Slippery Art of Polling Newsweek

[kikiek]

ON SCIENCE
Sharon Begley
The Slippery Art of Polling

Young cell-phone-only users prefer Obama by 35 points, almost triple the spread among landline users.
Published Sep 27, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Oct 6, 2008

If quantity fostered quality, this year's polls asking "McCain or Obama?" would be the best in history: polls have proliferated so crazily that Mark Blumenthal, who analyzes them at pollster.com, writes in a typical post, "Another day, another 37 new statewide polls." The profusion isn't surprising. It reflects the tightness of the race, the increased emphasis on state rather than national polls as the Electoral College looms large, and a race so fluid that pollsters are bound and determined to capture every shift. What is surprising is that, after a primary season in which polls got several big races wrong (Clinton. New Hampshire. Enough said), pollsters are breaking ranks on some key aspects of methodology and admitting that, this year, old truths about polling are in tatters.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/161227