Why Do Pollsters Even Bother with Landline Phones Now?

[MineralMan]

I'm an old geezer, 79 years old. I don't know a single person in my circle of family and friends who still has a landline. Not one.

I hung on to mine for many years, even though I never got a call on it that wasn't some telemarketer. I kept it because I had a collection of vintage and antique phones, including an 1890s oak wall phone mounted in my kitchen. You could only answer calls on that, since it had no dialing capabilities. I had a candlestick dial phone from the 1930s and various and sundry rotary dial phones in the rooms in my house. There was even a pink Princess phone in the bedroom. I likes using those historical old phones. I'm weird like that.

Then, after I returned from my younger brother's funeral in California in the early 2010, I discovered that my landline phones had stopped working. I thought about calling the phone company but instead, I just removed all of the old phones that were connected and cancelled the landline. I had essentially stopped using them, except out of nostalgia. My cheap smartphone was just fine and let me do all sorts of other things.

So, who are the pollsters calling that still have landlines? Are they relevant to any election? Or are they all anachronistic relics of the past? Why are we even asking about landlines vs. cell phones? Are landline users something special that we should be paying attention to? I say that they are not.

It's just another example of why election polling is so erratic these days. Why are we paying attention to it?

[CrispyQ]

1. I was one of the last people I know who had one. Got rid of it a year ago.

I get a lot of text polling but I delete all those.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. That's the question.

60% of people under 30 don't have landlines. Older people have landlines.

Pollsters call landlines because those are the people who answer their phones. Cell phones not so much. Everything goes to voice mail or gets deleted. Working people don't answer their cell phones for non-work, or only for emergencies.

Unless pollsters compensate for demographics, age, locale, work status ... they're not getting a microcosm of voters.

[Ocelot II]

4. I'm old. My friends are old. None of us have landlines any more.

I think landline use is more likely to be based on the reliability of cell coverage than on age - there are still rural areas where it's not good, and people living there are going to keep their landlines.

[Ocelot II]

3. Offhand, I can't think of anyone who still has a landline at their home.

Like you (and I'm old, too), I ditched mine when it finally dawned on me that almost all the calls I ever got on it were from telemarketers, and that the people who actually knew me would call me on my mobile. Many, possibly most businesses still have landlines and I'm sure some individuals are keeping theirs. According to this article, https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/you-might-still-need-a-landline-phone-even-in-2024-heres-why/ only 28% of households still have a landline, down from > 90% in 2004. It points out that some people are keeping their landlines because they are more reliable.

Landline phones operate on a separate infrastructure, built from copper phone lines that are inexpensive to build and rather reliable. They also don't have the drawbacks of cellular networks, like dropped calls, poor and distorted quality or weak reception. A key reason people keep landlines around is that they tend to work even during power outages, which is a big plus for folks whose work involves emergency services, business or health care.

Be that as it may, it appears that less than 1/3 of households still have landlines. Pollsters now call cell phones, but a lot of people (like me) don't answer unidentified calls. So it's hard to say whether phone polling produces accurate polls.

[yorkster]

5. Have a landline and a cell.

For longer, in-depth calls, much prefer the landline. Better audio quality, no lag time, etc.

[Arne]

6. I was a teenage phone phreaker.

Once even started my own neighborhood phone network using the black
Stromberg Carlson copy phones.
Someone here mentioned the Magic Jack VOIP device yesterday
which brought up those memories.
My internet is DSL dual landline and for that reason I'm keeping
the old phones connected to a copper twisted pair.

Figure the landline will work when cell towers don't.

[TwilightZone]

8. There haven't been any exclusively-landline polls conducted in years.

Landlines are a small fraction of the total in most of the polls that still include them.

And about 25-30% of US households still have a landline. The fact that you don't have one doesn't mean that no one does.

[peggysue2]

9. We had a landline in Tennessee

I had it taken out when we started to update the house for resale. Also had the NuTone intercom system removed and plastered over when we repainted the interior. Every room had a wall-flush box. Ugh.

I guess the pollsters are targeting older homes and/or apartments that are likely to have the landline hook-ups and/or seniors in particular who might still use them out of nostalgia, convenience (my mother-in-law had difficulty utilizing a cell-phone bc of poor eyesight, hearing and limited dexterity) or the perceived cost of the switch over.

For everyone else, they're antiques.

[Voltaire2]

10. Most polls now use both cell and landline phone numbers.

A small amount of research would have revealed that the dependency on landlines for randomizing polling populations stopped quite a while ago.

A more relevant problem is that the fire hose of phone spam has resulted in fewer people answering any sort of phone call from unknown callers, or in particular with younger people, answering the phone function on their devices at all.

[Ocelot II]

12. Bingo. It's not that they are only calling landlines; that's no longer the case - they do call cellphones.

But unidentified calls often go unanswered. You can even set up your phone to reject spammers at the first ring. I don't know what percentage of poll calls ever get answered at all, or whether or how pollsters take this factor into consideration.

[Akacia]

11. I still have a landline and prefer it.

For me I cannot deal with the small keyboard, because of arthritis in the hands. It is also much cheaper than a cell phone, and to see the screen is tough for me too. People do look at me like I am crazy when I say I do not have or want a cell phone but I really don`t care, to each their own.

[epreic01]

13. I always wonder:

Has there been any studies done about this issue with polling.
I’m 40. I don’t have a landline. And I never answer my phone.
I wonder if they call more landlines than cells. And I wonder if people that identify as more conservative or rural tend to answer unknown numbers more often? Because among my friends, even the ones that are personally more conservative (yet vote blue), are way more likely to answer their phone.

[W_HAMILTON]

14. Most polls I've seen don't focus on landline vs. cell phone -- they randomly generate numbers to call...

...based on the area code they are looking to poll. From there, they then ask questions to determine whether the person is in the population they are looking for (e.g., someone with the area code they want to poll but is now living in another state and just maintained their cell phone throughout, they will exclude).

I have been polled by a big pollster (Quinnipiac) once -- during a Democratic primary -- and they reached me through my cell phone.

[kimbutgar]

15. I still have my landline and it's expensive my husband wants me to get rid of it but I've had that number for

31 years. And sometimes I hear from old friends.

[krawhitham]

21. You can transfer that number to a cell phone

[kimbutgar]

22. I didn't know that

Thank you!

[Raftergirl]

16. I don't have a landline but I do have the same phone number that my landline was. But, it's VOIP now. I do not

want to get rid of that phone number as that is the number everyone has for me and the number most of my long standing accounts have on record. It only costs $10/month.

I also do not want to walk around with my cell phone when i am home. It stays in my purse so I don’t lose it/misplace it. I have 4 hand held phones so one is always nearby. I make almost all my calls from them. .

I also don’t lose the use of my house line if there is a power outage as we have a whole house generator.

[yankee87]

17. Phone aficionado

Had a crank phone when younger in basement to call upstairs. Princess phone. Also had the black, metal dial phone.
But how true. Who has landlines?

Thank you for the memories.

[MineralMan]

18. I enjoyed my ancient phones.

I don't know why, but I did.

[krawhitham]

19. Only 1% of Americans have just a Landline

According to the most recent estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics, about 73% of American adults in 2022 lived in households where there were only wireless phones and no landlines, while another 25% were in households with both. Barely over 1% had only landlines.

https://apnews.com/article/landlines-cellular-phones-outage-a23b296d420917f7835e3cd9860c7bd5

[MineralMan]

20. Thanks for those stats!

[Self Esteem]

23. Not sure why some assume pollsters call just landlines.

Pollsters will call where you're listed, whether that's a landline or a cell phone. I don't even think they determine what the number is connecting to prior to polling.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

24. I still have a land line sort of-I use Magic Jack

My house has a radiate barrier and there are days where I get bad cell coverge.

I enjoy being polled. I have been polled three times this election cycle