Why NH pollsters may be missing voters
By Michael Kranish
Globe Staff
CONCORD, N.H. -- As New Hampshire poll results are being released in the countdown to primary day, keep in mind the story of Fergus Cullen. The 35-year-old Republican has managed to avoid being called by a pollster for months because he has no landline telephone.
Instead, he has only a cellphone -- and pollsters tend not to call cellphones.
Cullen is hardly an anonymous New Hampshirite. He is the chairman of the state's Republican Party, and few have a better sense of the pulse of the electorate. In a recent interview in his office, which is decorated with a picture of one of Cullen's heroes, former President Nixon, Cullen wondered whether the polls are missing thousands of people like him -- and whether that will have a significant impact on the polling results.
For starters, Cullen said, few of the state's thousands of college students have landlines. The same is true the Granite State's younger, non-college population. If these voters turn out in far larger number than in the past, as happened during the Iowa caucuses, then the polls could be undercounting the electorate here. Some analysts believe that is one reason Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic caucuses was larger than anticipated.
As people drop their landlines, pollsters have worried about missing segments of the population in their opinion surveys. Phone directories are rare for cell phones. And many carriers charge the answering party for each call, which makes cellphone surveys problematic.
But Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said there are fewer people in New Hampshire without landlines than in many other states. He does not think exclusion of cellphone-only voters will have a statistically significant impact on polls this time around.
Nonetheless, Cullen said that possible under-polling could affect candidates such as Representative Ron Paul of Texas. Many of Paul's voters are young and might be more likely to have only a cellphone. The difference might be small, perhaps just one percentage point in the polls. But it could be significant in a tight race. The question is whether Paul would draw equally from his opponents or take a disproportionate number from one candidate.
"A pollster would tell you that it doesn't matter if you exclude them provided they are voting in the same way as other voters are," Cullen said. "But I personally am not persuaded by that. It seems clear to me that younger voters have different preferences from other voters and that younger voters are disproportionately more likely to have given up their landline."
Paul, a libertarian, won 10 percent of the vote in the Iowa Republican caucuses, a stronger showing than some analysts expected. Paul appeared in last night's debate on ABC, but he has been excluded from tonight's debate on Fox. Cullen believes the decision is so unfair that his party has withdrawn official support for the debate. Fox made its decision even though a UNH poll released yesterday showed Paul with 9 percent. Fox has invited former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, who received only 1 percent in the same survey.
Cullen said Paul "seems likely" to get at least 10 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, which would give him a delegate at the national convention. If so, Paul could have a more significant impact on the GOP race in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
After a county by county analysis in Iowa, a few things are clear. Ron Paul at 10% of the overall vote always beat Giuliani & Hunter in EVERY county. Ron Paul won 2 delegates & they won none. Huckabee only won 17 delegates. Huckabee won MOST counties & Romney a few. But what I bet you did not know was that Ron Paul came in second in a few counties, & actually WON Jefferson county. McCain & Thompson each at 13% of the overall vote did not win a single county. In fact I do not think McCain & Thompson came in second in ANY counties. Compared to them Ron Paul did well.
I also think Ron Paul has a shot at 3rd in NH. And that he will do better than 10% - maybe 15%. That should give him 3rd. McCain and Romney are too far ahead. Ron Paul has put much more effort into NH than he did in Iowa. I think he can beat Thompson, Huckabee, and Giuliani.
I think we are starting to see the evidence that the official polls are rigged. How much evidence will we need to do something about it?
Don't worry about rigged polls. Worry about educating the public on the issues and Dr. Paul's platform, and the rigged VOTING PROCESS! We have to give the polls less credibility if we expect the public to see them for what they are, meaningless. We have to stay focused on the voting process (voting machines). Getting back to paper ballots or a method with which we can better insure fair and accurate vote counting, is something I'm not seeing much emphasis on. Is this suddenly not a concern anymore? Do we really think the establishment will not use these rigged machines against Dr. Paul as a last line of defense if deemed necessary? Focusing on the polls will cost us precious time and energy better used where it counts. THE VOTES!
Ron Paul's junk is more of the same old anti-immigrant, isolationist tried and true crap packaged as new and fresh. He is the worst of all the candidates and his followers have a poor sense of history, and/or are willfully ignorant, or are among the scary set that know that he is spouting the same old heinous, bigoted tripe in which they, at last, have found a candidate to voice.
The good news is he siphons off the crackpot vote which has almost exclusively found roots in the Republican party. I pray he runs a third party candidate and sends gets all the lookey loos to vote for him and flush their vote down the toilet VS using it to support a lousy Republican candidate like Romney.
It seems typical of Ron Paul supporters to favor going back to the "old way" of doing things, regardless of their respective merit. In case of the voting machines, you may be correct. In the case of the gold standard, the de-federalization of the economy, the withdraw from almost all of the world organizations and treaties that we've signed, and the removal of almost all federal safeguards on the economy and the products we consume every day, you are absolutley nuts.
Quite honestly, it is not the Paul supporters that scare me, it is the absolute ignorance of most of those that bash him. Paul may be many things but he is not a bigot and unless you consider the founding fathers fringe lunatics (which many loyalists did), he is not a lunatic.
To anyone who calls Ron Paul nuts:
Will you think he's nuts when the US dollar is worth $0?
Will you think he's nuts when you get drafted?
He's the ONLY candidate who voted against the war and against the Patriot Act. Obama voted for the Patriot Act TWICE. So did McCain. That to me is what's nuts.
Do your research and you'll find Ron Paul is the only choice.
I would say that New Hampshire Fred and Baston Bryan are not reading current events as it pertains to the Economy. The system in place has created an economic catastrophe that is a Global phenomenon. The average consumer will feel the brunt of the Lunacy of the Credit system in 2008.
Do not fear so much for your paradigm that you will not allow change when new data presents itself.
I Vote For Virtue; I Vote For Ron Paul !!!
Most of my phone use is with cell phones, so I had not been in any phone polls before this weekend. One poll called yesterday and another one today. It felt good to indicate my support for Ron Paul. It might help a little to make the polls more realistic.
I was not home today to watch Dr. Paul on the televised Town Hall meeting. Instead, I went to hear former President Clinton speak. He made Hillary sound good, but I continue to strongly believe the nation and the world needs Dr. Paul now.
He is not a viable presidential candidate. He almost yells when he answers questions in a debate, and sounds like he is whining the whole time. He may have some good ideas, but he will never receive more than a small minority vote. He just comes across as a wacko. Now, I imagine we'll hear some whining from his supporters because he was excluded.
Decentralization is the key to economic and social progress. It was an idea espoused a long time ago in the Constitution, but due to political intransigence, special interests, and an over-centralized money system, the opposite has happened. Many young people are understanding of this in an economic sense, as they seek to use a wider spectrum of the market than their predecessors. This is demonstrated by the "long tail" phenomenon that is active in the Internet-based market today.
In another sense, the idea of overbearing federal control on social policy and social programs is bound to fail in the future as miserably as it is failing today. The only thing holding this artificial structure together is a morass of laws, lobbies, paid-for politicians, and special-interest groups who feed off the conflicts.
Those who tout the idea of over-centralized planning in either economics or social policy are living in an age that is no longer with us, except by fiat. Especially today, with the U.S. becoming more and more diverse, cross-cultural, and interactive with the world economies, centralized planning and overregulation are becoming less relevant to the diverse groups of people within the U.S. Republic.
Paul understands this because he is a Jeffersonian. Many Americans, especially those who are not tied to the information technology industry, are having trouble processing this different way of thinking. We've been trained well to believe that BIG GOVERNMENT is the answer to our problems, and that the U.S. is the center of the earth. In time, many will recognize that the big statist politicians--including all the frontrunning Dems and Republicans--are out of step with an evolving world.
When we think of all the “control” necessary to keep our economy functioning, and our social structures in place, then we may realize that such a system is not possible to maintain without endless warfare, ongoing federal intrusions, and incessant borrowing. Quite simply, the U.S. political establishment and a segment of the public are fighting evolution--and it’s a fight that will fail in the long run.
The media just wants to keep us distracted from the ground game.
We're canvasing and stuff.
If there is one thing that is self evident, it is that those who oppose Dr. Paul be it idiots who are too lazy to study history and economics, or presidential candidates who smile, or act stupid in front of the American public instead of answering questions with responses that rely on fact, and the truth; History will record the truth, not the opinions of the truth and Dr Paul as always will be shining as the one who can truthfully place his hand on the bible and swear an oath to protect, defend, and obey the Constituiton as no other canidate can. Notice that of all the Republican candidates, Charlie Gibson the moderator on Saturday night used the word "Respect" only with Dr. Pauls record for staying true to principle.
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