A Caveat

If the Republicans don't do very well in the House races, as predicted below by Charlie Cook and by pollsters and pundits of every stripe, this election will go down in history as the election where the predictors really blew it big time. Everybody is forecasting a GOP "wave" pretty much overwhelming the Dems wherever possible. If it doesn't turn out that way our polling/predicting mechanisms will need a thorough overhaul.

Even if the predicted wave does roll ashore, I think telephone pollsters need to start calling cell phone users if they want to claim to have a look at the entire population. Many young people have no land line phone now and maybe never will. As they age they will become likely voters and need to be included in the population surveyed.

I'd like to see an article explaining why pollsters don't call cell phone users. I suspect it has something to do with not being able to pin down where the owners live and thereby make an educated guess at race and socio-economic status - factors upon which pollsters like to stratify their samples.