A few nights ago I saw a discussion panel on C-SPAN with Jean Shaheen all about the 18 to 24-year-old voters.
They discussed that traditionally, the 18 to 24-year-old voters were too expensive a voter segment for campaigns to reach and were thus discounted & ignored, but that that has all changed with the internet.
It was also discussed that the 18 to 24-year-old voters, especially those in college, typically use cell phones and have no access to conventional telephone (land) lines, and are thus inaccessible to pollsters, who only use land-based phone lines.
(see more below)
Now, add to that the following info, and you come to the conclusion that the pollsters are all failing to reflect the sentiments of the 18 to 24-year-old voters,
who will be especially significant in the Lamont vs. Lieberman race:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
As for this year, young voters have no more love for Bush now than they did [in 2004]. This is an online survey of 2,546 18-24 year old U.S. citizens conducted between October 4 and October 16 by Harvard's Institute of Politics
18-24 YEAR OLDS POISED TO CHALLENGE MIDTERM ELECTION TURNOUT RECORDS, HARVARD POLL FINDS
President Bush Gets Below-Average Grade of "C-" on Key Issues;
Majority of Likely Voters Favor Switch to Democratic Majority in Congress
A new national poll by Harvard University's Institute of Politics (IOP), located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, finds nearly a third (32%) of 18 to 24 year olds "definitely" plan on voting in the upcoming midterm elections, a proportion that will likely amount to the highest turnout percentage for this age group in any midterm election in the last twenty years. The poll also finds that young people continue to disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as President, with the President averaging a grade of "C-"on seven key issues facing America, with the lowest mark coming on his handling of the War in Iraq (D+). Finally, 18-24 year olds seem to favor a swapping of majority parties in Congress, as a majority of likely voters (52%) said they favor a Congress controlled by Democrats following the November elections.
Another "Dewey Defeats Truman" in the making?
Back in 1948, all the pollsters and the pundits thought that Truman was cooked, that Truman would be soundly defeated by NY Governor Tom Dewey, so much so that one major newspaper confidentally went to print on election night with the now-famous headline, "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN".
The analysis of why the pollsters got that race so wrong determined that it was about telephones, i.e., a 1948 version of today's situation!
It seems that the pollsters back in 1948 used telephones to interview people, but not everyone had a telephone back in 1948, indeed, telephones back in 1948 were considered an expensive luxury item more numerous in Republican households than in Democratic households, thus affluent Republican households were oversampled and working-class Democratic households were undersampled in 1948.
The working-class people whom the pollsters undersampled put Truman over the top in 1948, and history was made; could we have a similar situation in 2006 with the Lamont vs. Lieberman race and the undersampled cell-phone-using 18 to 24-year-old voters, who are freaked out about Iraq because they see their own age group dying there and because they see Cheney insanely still advocating a stay-the-course mentality?
We have been breaking records and making new history all year here in CT (with our record high Dem primary turnout and our record high new voter registrations), so ignore the old-school pollsters & pundits and expect the unexpected on election day for the Lamont vs. Lieberman race!
I can tell you that here in CT, Joe and his support system are all acting very fearful and very hostile, i.e., acting not at all like a team that has this thing in the bag:
http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/...