Polls That Include Cell Phone Only Voters Give Obama A Big Lead!

Fox News released a new poll Thursday showing that President Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney in three battleground states, topping off a week of bad-news polling for the Republican presidential nominee in toss-up states.

The poll, which covered Ohio, Virginia and Florida, shows Obama leading Romney by seven points in both Ohio (49 to 42 percent) and Virginia (50 to 43 percent). In Florida, Obama leads by five points (49 to 44 percent), which is within the poll's margin of error. Obama won all three states in 2008, marking the first time Virginia voted for a Democratic president since 1964.

In Michigan and Wisconsin, Obama has also opened up a lead against his rival: A CNN poll puts him up eight points in Michigan (52 to 44 percent), and one from Marquette Law School has Obama leading Romney by 14 points in Wisconsin (54 to 40 percent). In August, Obama led Romney in Wisconsin by only three points.

New York Times pollster Nate Silver notes that Obama tends to do better against Romney in polls that include cell phones and use live interviewers instead of automated questions.  Silver writes that Obama has shown a clear lead in the 16 cell phone-inclusive polls of seven top battleground states taken since the convention. (The Fox, CNN and Marquette Law School polls all included cell phone respondents.)  On average, Obama has a 5.8 percentage point lead in surveys that include properly weighted cell phone (only) respondents.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted September 12-16, 2012 among 3,019 adults, including properly weighted cell phone only respondents, finds that Obama has an eight-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely voters on which candidate gets their vote.  Not only does Obama enjoy a substantial lead on Pew's ballot preference question, he tops Romney in a number of other key categories, too.  Obama continues to be the more likable candidate by a substantial margin; his favorability rating has risen to 55% from 50% in late July, with only 42% now expressing an unfavorable view of him.

Pew Research Center leads other public polling organizations for polling expertise in our increasingly cell phone only society.

The number of Americans who have no landline phone service, who rely solely or mostly on cell phone service, has been growing for several years.  The cell phone only trend poses an increasing likelihood that public opinion polls conducted only or mostly to landline phone respondents have a conservative bias.

Analysis by Pew Research Center in 2010 shows support for Republican candidates is significantly higher in polls calling only or mostly landline respondents, than in dual frame surveys that combined properly weighted landline and cell phone respondent polling.

Pew Research found in 2010 up to a 10 point conservative bias gap between those who could be reached by landline and those who could be reached only by cell phone. Those who have gone cell phone only hold significantly more progressive / liberal political views than those who can still be polled by landline live or automated robo calls. This gap has likely widened over the last two years.

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Presidential Debate Watch, October 3rd

We invite you to get "fired up and ready to go" for the rest of the campaign Wednesday evening, October 3rd by attending a Debate Watch at Rugby House Pub, in north west Plano ~ 8604 Preston Rd., Suite 100, Plano, Tx 75024. (map)

The October 3rd debate between Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama is going to be an enormous event.   Some 200 million television viewers worldwide are expected to focus on the debate held at the University of Denver in Colorado.

The 90-minute October 3rd debate, moderated by Jim Lehrer, will be broken up into six 15-minute segments. Three of the segments will focus on the economy, with the remaining three segments focused on health care, governing and the role of government.

The Texas Democratic Women of Collin County, Democratic Network and Democratic Blog News have reserved the Rugby House Pub media room for debates on October 3rd, October 11th and October 22nd.  Watch for information about the October 16th debate watch location. Debate schedule posted below the more jump...

Texas Judge Halts Faulty Dead Voter Purge

State Court Judge Tim Sulak in Austin temporarily barred the Secretary of State's office from ordering county election officials to purge voters from registration rolls, who are listed on the state's highly inaccurate dead voter report. Judge Tim Sulak agreed with plaintiffs that the purge this close to election day may violate state and federal election code.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed today by four very much alive Texas voters who were told they would be purged from the voter registration rolls as deceased. They asked Judge Sulak to stop the state from striking about 77,000 names from the rolls, arguing the plan violates the U.S. Voting Rights Act and Texas election code.

The secretary of state is “restrained from further instructing the counties to remove any other names from the voter rolls,” Judge Sulak said in his order. “Plaintiffs are entitled to temporary injunctive relief.” He also barred the secretary of state from ordering county officials to remove from the rolls any voters who failed to “timely comply” with the dead voter notice letters already mailed out.