How You Phone Is How You Think: iPhone Users More Apt to Believe In GOP Takeover of Congress, Be Influenced by Tea Party, New Poll Find

For immediate Release:
October 3, 2010

Contact:
Erin LeHane
(415) 494-8626 x102
erin@calinnovates.org 

iPhone Users Are Influenced by Tea Party Endorsements Two Times as Much as Android or Blackberry Users

San Francisco, CA – CALinnovates, a California technology coalition, released a poll today at the annual CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association) convention in San Francisco about what voters’ mobile phones indicate about their political opinions.

“It’s fascinating research because our mobile phones are increasingly our portal to life, whether its politics, news, our job or even our friends and family,” said Tom Galvin, Zogby/463 pollster.  “We’re seeing a sea change as we go into the mid-term elections but what we learned in this survey is that voters are choosing their mobile technology in ways that predict behavior or opinions.”

The new national Zogby/463 online survey found the following:

  • Nearly 60 percent (58.9%) of iPhone users are more likely to predict a Republican majority in Congress in this year’s mid-term elections, while nearly 44.8 percent of Blackberry and 46.5 percent of Android users are more likely to predict a Republican majority.
  • iPhone users are two times more likely to be influenced by the Tea Party than those voters who carry a Android or Blackberry phone.
  • 1 in 5 iPhone users are influenced by the Tea Party.
  • iPhone users were twice as likely to say that Sarah Palin speaks for them than Android and Blackberry users.
  • Around 10 percent of likely voters evenly across mobile platforms say that Glenn Beck speaks for them.

Innovation was found to be important to voters and a strong majority support maintaining the Internet without additional regulation. Specifically, the poll found:

  • iPhone users are twice as likely to believe that innovation incentives are a better option to stimulate the economy than funding public works projects.
  • All likely voters are three times more likely to support a hands off approach to the Internet and supportive of not adding regulations. Of those voters, nearly 70 percent of iPhone and Android users and 50 percent of Blackberry users support keeping the Internet free of additional regulation.

In addition, other findings include:

  • Nearly 70 percent of Blackberry users feel confident about the country’s future over the next decade and nearly 90 percent of Blackberry users feel confident about their personal future.
  • Less than 50 percent of iPhone users feel confident about the country’s future over the next decade while 78 percent of iPhone users feel confident about their personal future.
  • Likely voters who do not own a mobile phone report the lowest levels of confidence of any group tested with less than 30 percent have any confidence of the future of the country over the next decade and 55 percent have confidence in their own personal future.

“The results tell us a lot about mobile phone users and political trends,” said Erin Lehane, CALinnovates Executive Director.  “Now the next time you are on a plane waiting to take-off, you can just look at your neighbor sitting next to you tweeting on his iPhone and know that he is more likely to be adding applications to track where the nearest Tea Party rally is than your neighbor to the left of you typing away on his Blackberry.”

The poll, a national Zogby online surveyed 2,077 likely voters with a margin of error of 2.2%. It was conducted October 1 through October 4, 2010.

For more information on CALinnovates please go to www.calinnovates.org; http://www.facebook.com/#!/CALinnovates and http://twitter.com/CALinnovates.

CALinnovates is a statewide coalition focused on championing the conversation about the future of California’s critical technology sector. CALinnovates brings together industry experts, thought leaders, tech innovators, policy makers and consumers in a nonpartisan mission to promote innovation, create new jobs, spur investment and support tech-friendly policies.

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