DOI: 10.3886/icpsr26823.v1
title: CBS News/New York Times Call-Back Poll, October 2008
title: Version 1

description: This call-back poll, fielded October 17-19, 2008, is a part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. This call-back poll reinterviewed 518 respondents who had participated in a CBS News poll conducted September 21-24, 2008. This dataset contains responses to the call-back questions as well as to questions in the original poll, which asked how much attention respondents were paying to the 2008 presidential campaign, their opinions of the candidates, their vote in the primaries, the likelihood that they would vote for president in the general election, for whom they would vote if the election were held that day, and the effect of the vice-presidential candidates on their vote. Additional questions asked about the condition of the national economy, respondent's personal finances, and whether the federal government should provide financial help to homeowners who were having trouble repaying their mortgages. In the call-back poll, respondents were reinterviewed about how much attention they were paying to the 2008 presidential campaign, their opinions of the candidates, the likelihood that they would vote in the presidential election, the effect of the presidential debates and the vice-presidential candidates on their vote, whether their opinions of the candidates had changed since the last poll, and if so, why they had changed their mind. Those who had already voted in the presidential election were asked for whom they had voted. Views were also sought on the condition of the national economy. Demographic variables include sex, age, race, education level, marital status, household income, employment status, political party affiliation, political philosophy, voter registration status and participation history, religious preference, frequency of religious attendance, whether respondents considered themselves to be a born-again Christian, and whether a child under 18 years of age was living in the household.
description: The data contain weight variables that should be used in analyzing the data. According to the CBS News Web site, the data were weighted to match United States Census Bureau breakdowns on age, sex, race, education, and region of the country. The data were also adjusted for the fact that people who share a telephone with others have less chance to be contacted than people who live alone and have their own telephones, and that households with more than one telephone number have more chances to be called than households with only one telephone number.
description: This call-back poll reinterviewed respondents who had participated in a poll fielded September 21-24, 2008. In the original poll, a variation of random-digit dialing using primary sampling units (PSUs) was employed, consisting of blocks of 100 telephone numbers identical through the eighth digit and stratified by geographic region, area code, and size of place. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. Within households, respondents were selected using a method developed by Leslie Kish and modified by Charles Backstrom and Gerald Hursh (see Backstrom and Hursh, SURVEY RESEARCH. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1963).
description: Datasets: 
DS1: CBS News/New York Times Call-Back Poll, October 2008
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the United States.
description: telephone interviewThe data available for download are not weighted and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.This data collection includes responses to questions from the original poll as well as to the call-back poll. Original survey questions are identified with the prefix "Q", while call-back questions are identified as "RQ".The CASEID variable was reformatted in order to make it a unique identifier.Responses in the variable Q103 (ZIP Code) were blanked to protect respondent confidentiality.Value labels for unknown codes were added in variables RQ6, RQ7, and RQ8. A truncated value label in variable EDUC was corrected.This data collection was produced by CBS News, New York, NY.