538 On the Cell Effect (We keep hitting controversial polling topics, haha)

[Alcon]

I think there are other properties of a pollster that might correlate with their likelihood of contacting cell phone voters, and it's a small sample size.

But, still, that's a little chilling.

[Alcon]

You do realize that Pew, CBS/NYT and Time have always had a historical Democratic lean, even before the invention of the cell phone.

My essential problem.

However, I think we're kidding ourselves if we think that this phenomenon isn't going to show up eventually.  How could it not?

[Alcon]

This assumes that the majority of those who own cellphones are liberal leaning Democrats. Cellphone ownership and usage knows no political bounds.

Exclusive cell phone ownership is drastically higher among the young.

[Alcon]

Only if young cell phone only users increase their turnout while no one else does. Or, I guess, if the pollster is completely clueless when it comes to weighting.

It's not a relative increase in turnout, but a relative increase in the demographic size, probably combined with a more Democratic result among them than previously.

[Alcon]

I don't really see the young vote being undersampled. Most voters make sure they have an appropriate amount of youngs in their sample. The real question is whether landline youngs vote differently than cell phone youngs. I say the answer is no.

Probably not radically different, but I'd wager more likely to be urban and much more likely to be college students or college-educated.  In the meantime, though, I think we're dealing with a relatively minor demographic issue.