IN THE NEWS:
Today, the Rasmussen polls revealed that Pres. Trump has a 50% approval rating. The accuracy of this poll is a highly questionable representation of American citizens, as a whole. There are 3 types of recognized communication users today. The tabulated poll results are sourced from ONLY landline telephone users. Therefore, it cannot accurately reflect the true approval rating representing ALL of American citizens.
First,- "landline only" users tend to be older, more conservative, Republican voters and move least often than their counterparts. They are concerned with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid issues. Healthcare tends to be a priority to them.
Second,- "dual communication" phone users(landline and cell), tend to be better educated, have higher incomes, are a less ethnically diversified population and are more tech savvy, than "landline only" users.
Third,- "cell phone only" users tend to be young, more politically liberal, predominantly Democratic voters, male, predominantly black/Hispanic and lower wage earners with a lower level of academic education and move their primary residence more often. Social media participation tends to be very important to them and they tend to spend more time engaged in using social media, than their counterparts.
The basic "caveat", that applies to this poll and all polls, is be careful whose version of the truth you accept.
Pres. Trump was reported to be "Pleased Bigly", with today's poll results. It seems that unfavorable polls, are immediately declared by Trump, as"fake news" and are not to be believed. He engenders the myth, that poor poll ratings have been engineered by a vast left-wing conspiracy, designed to discredit his popularity.
Trump speaks "ex cathedra", that there's only one truth,...and it's HIS gold-plated version of the truth.
Fact Check.Org
Cell Phones and Political Polls
The most common kinds of public opinion polls long have been conducted by calling a random sample of residential phones. This was OK when nearly every home had a phone, but in recent years a growing number of people, mostly young adults, have decided to use only a cell phone and do without a separate landline in their home.
It's possible to include cell phones in a poll sample, but it's expensive, difficult and seldom done. That means a growing number of cell-phone-only persons are generally not included, and their opinions are not reflected in the results we commonly see published.
- Young: 46 percent of the cell-only sample was in the 18 to 29 age group, compared with 12 percent for landline users.
- Male: Men made up 61 percent of the cell-only sample but only 48 percent of the landline sample.
- Less White: 19 percent of the cell-only sample was black, versus 11 percent for the landline sample. Asians made up 5 percent of the cell-only sample, versus 1 percent of the landline sample.
- More Hispanic: Hispanics (who can be of any race) were 13 percent of the cell-only sample compared with 6 percent of the landline sample.
Poll-takers apply various statistical manipulations to their survey results in an attempt to compensate for those who are missed in phone surveys. That task is becoming more difficult as more Americans do without hard-wired phones, giving the wise citizen one more reason not to put too much weight on any particular finding from a telephone poll.
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