General Reports and Commentaries
June 25, 2009
Perils of Polling in Election '08
Despite such challenges as a growing wireless-only population, possible racially-related response bias and greater-than-usual difficulties in forecasting turnout, polllsters' methods were evidently adequate to the task.
June 24, 2009
Pollwatch: Comparing the Polls on Spending and the Deficit
How the question is phrased has a clear impact on whether the public rates deficit reduction or stimulus spending more important.
March 6, 2009
Why Surveys of Muslim Americans Differ
Because Muslim Americans make up a very small percentage of the U.S. public, it is difficult to provide a reliable picture of their views and differences in survey design can crucially affect findings.
March 3, 2009
New Tricks for Old — and New — Dogs: Challenges and Opportunities Facing Communications Research
Pollsters and other communications researchers are finding their job ever more challenging but also more interesting, and, with the help of new techniques and data sources, even more amenable.
January 22, 2009
Understanding Likely Voters
This analysis summarizes differences in presidential horserace estimates based on likely and registered voters in 2008 and previous election cycles and describes the Pew Research Center's 2008 likely voter scale.
October 17, 2008
Poll Power
Though by no means a perfect instrument, polls make it possible for more opinions, held by a broader and more representative range of citizens, to be known to the government and thus, potentially, heeded.
A 'Brute Force' Estimation of the Residence Rate for Undetermined Telephone Numbers in an RDD Survey
Public Opinion Quarterly 72:28-39 (2008)
This paper discusses "e" the proportion of unresolved telephone numbers that are, in fact, eligible for the survey.
July 2, 2007
"Frequently Asked Questions" about Pew's Muslim American Survey: The Facts behind the Design, Conduct and Analysis of a High-Profile Study
A recent report, "Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream," attracted a great deal of attention but also raised a number of questions about the research. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the design, conduct and analysis of this study.
February 7, 2007
Can You Trust What Polls Say about Obama's Electoral Prospects?
Recent polling points to two significant shifts on the question of whether the American public is ready to support an African American candidate for president.
October 26, 2006
Are National Polls Reliable Predictors of Midterm Elections?
This study addresses how accurate the "generic ballot" is in predicting Congressional election results.
Gauging the Impact of Growing Nonresponse on Estimates from a National RDD Telephone Survey
Public Opinion Quarterly 70: 759-779 (2006)
This article provides more extensive analysis of data from the study reported in Polls Face Growing Resistance, But Still Representative.
April 20, 2004
Polls Face Growing Resistance, But Still Representative
Even as response rates to telephone surveys continue to decline, this study finds that carefully conducted polls continue to obtain representative samples of the public and provide accurate data about the American public.
May 18, 2001
Screening Likely Voters: A Survey Experiment
This report presents results from a study in a closely contested mayoral race in Philadelphia conducted in 1999 to help assess which questions or combination of questions from our likely voter scale were most accurate in predicting voting.
Consequences of Reducing Nonresponses in a National Telephone Survey
Public Opinion Quarterly 64:125-148 (2000)
This article provides more extensive analysis of data from the study reported in Conservative Opinions Not Underestimated, But Racial Hostility Missed.
January 27, 1999
Online Polling Offer Mixed Results
This study compares responses from an online survey to those obtained using a random digit dial telephone survey and finds significant attitudinal and demographic differences between the general public and those who participate in online polls.
March 27, 1998
Conservative Opinions Not Underestimated, But Racial Hostility Missed
As critics charge that many public opinion surveys conducted in a short time period produce biased and inaccurate results, this study finds that a standard and a more rigorous telephone survey produce strikingly similar results.
Polling and Cell Phones
July 9, 2009
Accurately Locating Where Wireless Respondents Live Requires More Than A Phone Number
The mobile nature of wireless phones creates a significant problem for geographic sampling and analysis. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the wireless-only are more geographically mobile than those with landline phones.
December 18, 2008
Calling Cell Phones In '08 Pre-Election Polls
The addition of cell phones in Pew Research Center election surveys had at most a modest effect on estimates of candidate support in individual surveys, but when looked at in the aggregate clear patterns emerge resulting in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain.
September 23, 2008
Cell Phones and the 2008 Vote: An Update
As shown in our election summary release, including cell phone interviews results in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain.
July 17, 2008
Cell Phones and the 2008 Vote: An Update
This is the first study documenting how the overall estimate of voter presidential preference is modestly affected by whether or not the cell phone respondents are included.
May 22, 2008
Research Roundup: Latest Findings on Cell Phones and Polling
The Pew Research Center has been studying the challenge to survey research posed by the growing number of wireless-only households. Here's a summary of its latest findings.
January 31, 2008
The Impact of "Cell-Onlys" on Public Opinion Polls
This study finds that respondents reached on cell phones hold attitudes very similar to those reached on landline telephones on key political measures such as presidential approval, Iraq policy, vote preference and party affiliation.
June 20, 2007
How Serious Is Polling's Cell-Only Problem?
The landline-less are different from regular telephone users in many of their opinions and their numbers are growing fast. Can survey researchers meet this challenge?
June 20, 2007
What's Missing from National RDD Surveys? The Impact of the Growing Cell-Only Population
This study finds evidence that as the number of cell-phone-only households has continued to grow it does not create biased estimates for the population as a whole, but it does on certain variables for young adults, 25% of whom are cell-only. A revised version of this paper was also published in Public Opinion Quarterly in 2007.
October 26, 2006
Cell-Only Voters Not Very Different: Fewer Registered, More First-time Voters
Three Pew Research Center surveys of cell-only Americans this year have found that their absence from landline surveys is not creating a measurable bias in the bottom-line findings.
May 15, 2006
The Cell Phone Challenge to Survey Research: National Polls Not Undermined by Growing Cell-Only Population
While Americans who rely solely on a cell phone for telephone service differ in their demographics from land-line subscribers, a new study finds that so far the results obtained by surveys that exclude cell-only users are not significantly affected.