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    The Troubling Quiet of North Carolina’s Cell Service Outages

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    Service has been restored in some areas after Hurricane Helene, but many people are still unable to communicate by phone, which has hampered relief efforts, worried loved ones and complicated daily life.John Tressler stood next to what was left of his storm-battered deli, part of which had collapsed in the torrents of a raging river, and waited to meet a relief crew bringing a much-needed supply of food into Swannanoa, N.C.He passed the time chatting with another business owner, and kept waiting. And waiting. He could use his phone to check the time, but, without cell service, it was of little use otherwise.The problem, Mr. Tressler soon realized, was that he had changed the meeting spot at the last minute. And that text had never gone through.More than a week after the remnants of Hurricane Helene unleashed catastrophic flooding in Swannanoa and much of western North Carolina, cell service remains spotty — or, in many cases, nonexistent.Not being able to text or call has complicated relief efforts, made previously straightforward daily tasks difficult and even kept people in the dark about whether or not their loved ones perished in the storm.The outage adds to the burden the region is now facing as the death toll from the storm has risen above 225 — more than half in North Carolina — and many population centers are facing a near future with no power or clean water. The loss of cell service has made solving those problems even harder. Officials have described not being able to reach family members of the people who died, delaying the identification of their bodies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cellphone Bans in Schools? NYC Is ‘Not There Yet,’ Mayor Says

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      Districts and states across the United States have supported restrictions on student usage, but New York City’s leaders are backing away from the idea because of logistical concerns.Los Angeles became the largest school district in the United States to ban cellphones in June. Entire states, such as Virginia, Ohio and Minnesota, have moved to institute broad crackdowns on phones in schools. But not New York City.At least not yet, Mayor Eric Adams said on Tuesday.Mr. Adams said at a news conference that New York City was a “unique animal” and that while there would be “some action,” the city was not yet ready for a full ban.“We’re not there yet,” he said. “We have to get it right.”Earlier in the summer, David C. Banks, the schools chancellor, suggested that new cellphone restrictions would be unveiled before the fall semester. So the mayor’s announcement — a week before the city’s first day of school — came as a surprise to many families.Mr. Adams’s comments will likely placate some parents and educators concerned about the logistics of a ban, while worrying others who argue that the devices harm students.A growing list of states, cities and school districts have curbed students’ cellphone use as concerns rise over their mental health. Officials point to the potential damage that access to social media and an “always online” culture may do to children.Mr. Adams said that while he did not want any distractions in city schools, he also wanted to be careful about the implementation of any eventual ban, so that the city wouldn’t have to backtrack on its plans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Landline Users Remain Proudly ‘Old-Fashioned’ in the Digital Age

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      When millions of AT&T customers across the country briefly lost their cellphone service last month, Francella Jackson, 61, of Fairview Heights, Ill., said she picked up her well-worn Southwestern Bell push-button landline phone and called her friends “just so we could laugh at the people who could not use their phones.”“Why, isn’t it great that we can talk and have a great conversation?” she recalled saying. “We had a good laugh.”Derek Shaw, 68, of York, Pa., said he has an Android mobile phone, but prefers talking on his black cordless landline at home. The sound quality is better, he said, and the phone is easier to hold during long conversations. Mr. Shaw said that he also likes talking to people face to face rather than on Zoom and never got rid of his vinyl record collection when CDs got hot in the 1990s.“I’ve never even thought about giving up my landline,” he said. “I’ll go kicking and screaming when I have to.”The fashion designer Adrienne Vittadini in 1984.Susan Wood/Getty ImagesTo many, landline phones have come to seem as essential as steamships and telegrams in the smartphone era. But to those who still use them, they offer distinct advantages. Prompted by the AT&T outage on Feb. 22 and a push by AT&T to phase out traditional landlines in California, those who have them are speaking out in defense of their old phones.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      AT&T Offers $5 Credit After Widespread Service Outage

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      Thousands of customers lost service on Thursday when the telecommunications company ran into problems while trying to expand its network, the company’s chief executive said.AT&T will offer a $5 credit to customers affected by a widespread outage on Thursday that was caused by technical issues the company encountered while trying to expand its network, its chief executive said on Sunday.The outage, which started around 3:30 a.m. Eastern time, temporarily cut off connections for users across the United States.Some of the affected cities included Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York, according to Downdetector.com, which tracks user reports of telecommunication and internet disruptions.At its peak, the site had received about 70,000 reports of disrupted service for AT&T. Service was fully restored after about seven hours.“No matter the timing, one thing is clear — we let down many of our customers, including many of you and your families,” the chief executive of AT&T, John T. Stankey, wrote in a letter dated Sunday. “For that, we apologize.”In an effort to “make it right” AT&T is offering customers a $5 credit on their AT&T Wireless account, according to the company’s website.“For the portion of consumer and small business customers most impacted by the outage, we are automatically applying an account credit to compensate them for the inconvenience they experienced,” the company said.It will take one to two billing cycles for the credit to appear, depending on when a customer’s bill closes, the company said.Prepaid customers will have options available if they were affected, Mr. Stankey wrote, but did not specifically identify those options.AT&T also said it was “working closely” with Mid-Market and Enterprise customers, which are internet plans for businesses, to address their concerns.It was not immediately clear how much the credits would amount to in lost revenue. A company representative could not be reached on Sunday.In a statement, AT&T emphasized that the outage wasn’t caused by a cyberattack.“Our initial review of the cause of Thursday’s outage indicates it was due to the application and execution of an incorrect process used while working to expand our network,” Mr. Stankey wrote in his letter.The credit is meant to refund customers for the day that the service was lost, he wrote.“I believe that crediting those customers for essentially a full day of service is the right thing to do,” Mr. Stankey wrote. More

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      Attention! There’s Life Beyond the Digital.

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      More from our inbox:A Party Pooper’s View of the New Climate DealThe Biden Impeachment Inquiry: ‘Republicans, Have You No Shame?’The 1968 and 2024 ElectionsThe A.I. StakesVeterans’ Suicides by Firearm Harry WrightTo the Editor:Re “Fight the Powerful Forces Stealing Our Attention,” by D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh and Peter Schmidt (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 27):In 2010, frustrated that I had to admonish the students in my large sophomore lecture course to turn off their cellphones at the start of each class, only to see them return to them immediately at the end, I told them a story.When I went to college, I explained, there were no cellphones. After class, we thought about what we had just learned, often discussing it with our friends. Why not try an experiment: for one week, no cellphones for 10 minutes after every class? Only three of the 80 students accepted the challenge, and not surprisingly, they reported back that they were thrilled to find themselves learning more and enjoying it more thoroughly.So, hats off to the authors of this essay who are teaching attentiveness. I fear, though, that they are trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. Would that they prove me wrong.Richard EtlinNew YorkThe writer is distinguished university professor emeritus at the School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, University of Maryland, College Park.To the Editor:Of course, we have lost a good deal of our ability to focus and concentrate with the persistence of digital information gnawing at our attention spans. While this is not a new problem, it has been grossly intensified.The answer in the past, and the answer now, is libraries: places of quiet reading, contemplation, study, thinking, even daydreaming.To put away electronic media for a time and enjoy the silence of a library is a gift for personal balance and tranquillity.Bonnie CollierBranford, Conn.The writer is a retired associate director for administration, Yale Law Library.To the Editor:Some years ago I returned to the tiny Greek island my family left in 1910. “There’s nothing there,” everybody said. But the nothing that was there was the absolute antidote to most of the malaise of modern life, or, as my daughter calls it, “the digital hellscape.”The effect was immediate. No credit cards, no taxi apps, no alarm systems, none of it. Just the sounds of the goat bells on the hills and people drinking coffee and staring at the water and talking to each other. And it wasn’t boring at all.Jane WardenMalibu, Calif.A Party Pooper’s View of the New Climate Deal Fadel Dawod/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “In Climate First, Pact Seeks Shift on Fossil Fuels” (front page, Dec. 14):I hate to be a climate summit party pooper, but the bottom line is that the new deal being celebrated is not legally binding and can’t, on its own, force any country to act. History has shown that if a country isn’t forced to act, it usually won’t.How do I know that? We just had the hottest year on record, with global fossil-fuel emissions soaring to record highs. We had agreed not to go there. Here we are.Douglas G. WilliamsMinneapolisThe Biden Impeachment Inquiry: ‘Republicans, Have You No Shame?’Representative James Comer, left, and Representative Jim Jordan have led the Republican impeachment inquiry.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Impeachment Inquiry Approved, Despite No Proof of Biden Crime” (front page, Dec. 14):This is a sad day for our country. Republicans voted to have an impeachment inquiry into President Biden without having any basis on which to proceed. Why did they take this unprecedented step? They were responding to the wishes of Donald Trump.The constitutional power of the House of Representatives to impeach is a solemn duty reserved for instances where a president has committed “high crimes or misdemeanors.” In this case, there is not a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing, only a father’s love for his surviving son.Republicans, have you no shame? You will rue the day you voted in such an unethical manner. To use impeachment as a political tool in the 2024 election is an embarrassment for the whole world to see.I am afraid that we have reached the point where retribution is one party’s focus instead of the myriad needs of the people of this nation.Ellen Silverman PopperQueensThe 1968 and 2024 Elections Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Reading about how President Biden is losing support among young pro-Palestinian college kids takes me back to my youth. I’m a baby boomer, and this reminds me of the 1968 presidential election between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey.So many of my generation were so angry about the Vietnam War and how Vice President Humphrey had backed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s handling of the war that many of us refused to vote for Humphrey. Nixon was elected, and the war continued.As President Biden often says, an election is a choice. However, one can also choose not to vote. Those of us who refused to vote for Humphrey may well have tipped the election to Nixon, and with it all of the consequences that followed.It is a cliché that the perfect is the enemy of the good, but there is a lot of truth to it. I fervently hope we don’t make that mistake in 2024.Stuart MathNew YorkThe A.I. StakesTo the Editor:Re “How Money, Ego and Fear Lit A.I.’s Fuse” (“The A.I. Race” series, front page, Dec. 4):Although the history of artificial intelligence may read like a struggle between those favoring cautious development and those intent on advancing the technology rapidly with fewer restrictions, it was inevitable that the latter would come out on top.Given the resources required to scale the technology, it could be developed only with the support of parties with enormous computing power and very deep pockets (in other words, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta).And in return for their investments of billions of dollars, it is hardly surprising that those competing parties would demand rapid advancement with fewer restrictions in the hope of controlling the future of an industry that holds the promise of spectacular profit.In retrospect, the proponents of a cautious approach to the development of A.I. never stood a chance.Michael SilkLaguna Woods, Calif.Veterans’ Suicides by FirearmPhotos of people who died by suicide were displayed during an awareness event in Los Angeles last month.Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “U.S. Rate of Suicide by Firearm Reaches Record Level, Report Says” (news article, Dec. 2):The increasing use of firearms in suicides is particularly concerning among veterans. Suicide rates among veterans are twice as high as among civilians, and veterans are twice as likely as civilians to use a firearm in a suicide attempt. Younger veterans are at especially high risk; those under the age of 55 have the highest rates of suicide by firearm.New data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers a glimmer of hope: New York State is bucking the trend. It saw a 13 percent decrease in firearm-related suicides by veterans in 2021. That conforms with research findings that states with stricter gun control policies experience fewer firearm-related suicides.Saving lives means reducing access to lethal means.Derek CoyNew YorkThe writer, an Iraq veteran, is senior program officer for veterans’ health at the New York Health Foundation. More

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      Just a Few Top Secrets Among Friends

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      Bret Stephens: Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska governor and senator, emailed me a letter he was considering putting in the mail. He gave me permission to share it with our readers, so here you have it:Dear Federal Government,When a 21-year-old National Guardsman gets access to Top Secret briefings, my first conclusion is: You guys left the keys in the car and that’s why it was “stolen.” And when journalists find out who committed the crime before you do, my conclusion is that you folks are overpaid.BobYour thoughts on this latest intelligence debacle and the possibility that the suspect’s motive was to try to impress his little community of teenage gamers?Gail Collins: Yeah, Bret, the bottom line here is the fact that a teenage doofus was able to join the National Guard and quickly work his way up to its cyber-transport system, while apparently spending his spare time with his online pals playing video games, sharing racist memes and revealing government secrets.Bret: It’s enough to make me nostalgic for Alger Hiss.Gail: Teenage doofus is certainly in need of punishment, but he’s really not the main problem here. You think a lot about national security issues — what’s your solution?Bret: We certainly owe the suspect the presumption of innocence. But my first-pass answer is that when everything is a secret, nothing is a secret — in other words, a government that stamps “confidential” or “top secret” on too many documents loses sight of the information that really needs to be kept a secret.This is one area that’s really ripe for bipartisan legislation — a bill that requires the government to declassify more documents more quickly, while building taller and better fences around the information that truly needs to be kept secret.Gail: We really do agree, and to balance that out I’m gonna ask you about the Biden budget soon.Bret: Uh oh.Gail: But first I have to check your presidential prospect temperature. You kinda liked Ron DeSantis and then made a fierce turnaround, which I presume has been nailed in even further by his no-abortions agenda.Bret: It’s awful politics. It’s awful, period.Florida’s ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy means that many women will not even know they are pregnant before they are unable to obtain an abortion. It makes Mississippi’s 15-week ban look relatively moderate in comparison, which is like praising Khrushchev because he wasn’t as bad as Stalin. And it signals to every independent voter that DeSantis is an anti-abortion extremist who should never be trusted with presidential power.Gail: Down with DeSantis. So what about the new guy, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who would like to be our second Black president? He hasn’t officially announced, but he’s certainly doing that dance.Bret: In theory, he has a lot going for him. He exudes personal authenticity and optimism about America, as well as a sense of aspiration — attractive qualities in any politician. He’s sort of a standard-issue conservative on most policy issues and supports a 20-week national abortion ban, which is middle-of-the-road for most Americans and almost liberal for today’s Republican Party. He has the potential to win over some minority voters who have been trending conservative in recent years, while neutralizing potential Democratic attacks on racial issues.But how he fares with voters outside of his home base remains to be seen. A lot of these presidential aspirants fall apart the moment they come into contact with audiences who ask difficult questions.Gail: Yeah, recent interviews with Scott do seem to suggest there might be a problem there. On CBS, he said he was “100 percent pro-life.” When asked if that meant he supported Lindsey Graham’s proposed 15-week abortion ban, he replied “That’s not what I said.” Ummm …Bret: But we keep talking about Republicans. Are you still 100 percent convinced Joe Biden is gonna run for re-election? Because … I’m not.Gail: No way I’m going 100 percent. Biden’s current evasiveness could certainly be an attempt to time his big announcement for when everybody’s back from summer vacation and all geared up for presidential politics. Or, sigh, he could just want to string out his current status as long as possible because he knows once he announces he’s not running, he’ll practically disappear from the national political discussion.But I have trouble imagining that he doesn’t dream about knocking Donald Trump off the wall one more time. Why are you so doubtful?Bret: I know Biden is supposed to be following some kind of “Rose Garden strategy” of signing bills while his opponents tear themselves to pieces. But, to me, he just seems tired. I know that 90 is supposed to be the new 60, as you put it last week in your delightful column. I just don’t think that’s true of him. His 80 looks like the old 80 to me. Also, rank-and-file Democrats seem to be about as enthusiastic for his next run as they are for their next colonoscopy.I keep hoping he has the wisdom to know that he should cede the field as a one-term president who accomplished big things for his party rather than risk encountering senility in a second term.Gail: It’s important to stand up for the durability of so many 90-somethings. But age is certainly an issue in a lot of politics these days. I’m troubled right now about Senator Dianne Feinstein, who’s 89 and ailing. The Democrats need her vote to get anything much done in the Senate, particularly on judicial nominations.Bret: She’s a good argument for the point I was making about Biden.Gail: Very different cases — Biden is in great shape at 80; Feinstein is 89 and clearly failing. She’s already announced this year that she’s not running for re-election, but she really ought to step down instantly. A short-term governor-appointed successor could give the Democrats a much-needed vote, at least on some issues. But he or she shouldn’t be one of the possible candidates to succeed her. Maybe somebody who would just cheer us up for a while. How about Brad Pitt?Bret: Well, he’s definitely a Democrat, like most everyone else in Hollywood except Jon Voight. But my money is on Representative Adam Schiff succeeding Feinstein.Gail: Not a bad idea long term, although I’m hoping for another woman.OK, now it’s really time to talk about that Biden budget. Protect Medicare, expand some good programs like family leave and free community college for the poor. Balance it all out with a hike in the minimum income tax for billionaires.Are you surprised to hear that works for me?Bret: Expected nothing less. Basically I look at Biden’s budget not as a serious proposal but as a political ad for Democrats in 2024. In reality I expect we’ll get roughly the same budget as this year, only with much higher defense spending to account for threats from Russia and China.But the proposed tax on billionaires really bothers me, because it’s partially a tax on unrealized gains — that is, money people don’t actually have. If it were to pass, it could eventually apply to lots of people who are very far from being billionaires. It’s just like the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was originally devised in the late 1960s to hit a tiny handful of very rich people who weren’t paying their taxes, but wound up becoming another tax wallop to people of lesser means. I take it you … disagree?Gail: Uh, yeah. The very rich tend to organize their finances around legal tax avoidance. So they hold onto their often rapidly appreciating assets and just borrow against them.Bret: The problem remains that we’re talking about a tax on income that includes much more than income.Gail: It’s certainly important that what’s billed as a tax on the very rich not be applied to the middle class. But the complaints about Biden’s plan really are claims that it won’t just hit billionaires — it’ll make the hundred-millionaires suffer. Not feeling this is a problem.Bret: Fortunately it won’t pass this House or pass muster with this Supreme Court.On another note, Gail, an article in The Wall Street Journal reminds me that this month is the 50th anniversary of the first cellphone call — back when cellphones were the size of a shoe. Today, according to the article, more people have access to cellphones than they do to working toilets — six billion-plus versus around 4.5 billion. Any thoughts on the meaning of this golden anniversary?Gail: Wait, I’m mulling your toilet factoid …Bret: Yeah. Pretty shocking.Gail: OK, moving on. It’s thrilling the way cellphones allow parents to keep track of where their kids are and friends to stay in contact when they’re out of town. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched old movies when the heroine or the hero was in crisis and thought, “Oh, God if you could just call somebody.”But all this good news is connected to the technical and cultural changes that encourages people to communicate without having to take responsibility for what they say. Obviously, there are problems and we’ve got to figure out ways to make it work.Do you have a plan?Bret: We can’t escape the fact that new technologies are almost always both liberating and enslaving, and almost always unavoidable. Cellphones freed us from being attached to a physical location in order to be in touch — while putting us all on call no matter where we were. Smartphones put the world in our back pockets but also addicted us to tiny screens. If, God forbid, ChatGPT ever takes over this conversation, then, well, hmm … the two of us are going to spend a lot more time drinking good wine on your patio. There are worse fates.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      NYT/Siena Poll Is Latest to Show Republican Gains

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      Is four points the real margin nationally? That’s a good question.The path to keeping the House and the Senate appears to be getting tougher for Democrats, according to the most recent polling. Campaign signs for the Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan in Columbus on Friday.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesWe have the result of our third New York Times/Siena College national survey of the midterm cycle to go with your coffee this morning: 49 percent of voters say they back the Republican congressional candidate in their district, compared with 45 percent backing the Democratic one.It’s a modest but notable swing from last month, when Democrats led by one percentage point among likely voters. Since then, the warning signs for Democrats have begun to add up, including Republican polling gains in key Senate races like those in Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and surprising Republican strength in districts in Rhode Island and Oregon where Democrats would normally be safe.Up to this point, Democrats have maintained a narrow lead in polls asking whether voters prefer Democrats or Republicans for Congress, but there have been warning signs for the party here as well. Republicans have led in several high-quality polls, like ABC/Washington Post, CBS/YouGov and Monmouth University. Today, the Times/Siena survey adds a fourth such poll to the pile.The evidence for a shift toward Republicans appears to be underpinned by a change in the national political environment. Gas prices went up again. The stock market is down. A variety of data suggests that the electorate’s attention is shifting back to issues where Republicans are on stronger ground in public opinion, like the economy, inflation, crime and immigration, and away from the summer’s focus on democracy, gun violence and abortion, where Democrats have an edge.In other words, the conditions that helped Democrats gain over the summer no longer seem to be in place.Is four points the real margin? (Wonkiness 4/10)Our poll may show Republicans ahead, 49-45, and yet it may not be accurate to say they lead by four points. In fact, they actually lead by three points.How is this possible? Rounding. By convention, pollsters round the results to the nearest whole number. In this poll, the exact unrounded figures are 48.51 (rounding to 49) to 45.47 (rounding to 45). That’s a three-point lead.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.This is not at all uncommon. In 2020 polling, about one-third of our reported margins, based on the difference between two rounded vote shares of the candidates, were different from what our reported margin would have been if we had rounded once on the difference between exact figures.It’s not even the only example in today’s poll. Our result among registered voters is reported as a 46-46 percent tie, but Republicans lead, 46.2 to 45.6. If we reported it as a rounded margin, this might count as a one-point Republican lead.The two rounding errors add up to an even larger disparity between the reported and actual result when it comes to the difference between likely and registered voters. The rounded result makes it seem to be a four-point gap. In reality, the difference is a 2.5-point gap.This is a polling custom that has always left me a little cold. The case for rounding is straightforward: Reporting results to the decimal point conveys a false sense of precision. After a decade of high-profile polling misfires, “precision” is most certainly not the sense pollsters want to try to convey right now. And in this case, reporting to the one-thousandth of a point would obviously be ridiculous. We didn’t even contact a thousand people; how could we offer a result to the one-thousandth?But there’s a trade-off. Characterizing this poll as a four-point Republican lead doesn’t merely offer a false sense of precision — it’s just false. That’s not something I can gloss over.Sometimes, the difference is enough to affect the way people interpret the poll. We’ve reported one party in the “lead” by one percentage point when, in fact, the figures are essentially even. These differences don’t actually mean much, of course, but no one — not even those of us well versed in statistics and survey methodology — can escape perceiving a difference between R+1 and Even.Hopefully, the differences between the rounded and exact results can be another reminder that polling is inexact. The results are fuzzy, and the margin of error understates the actual degree of uncertainty anyway. If we had called another 100 people, or did another round of callbacks, the results would almost certainly have been at least somewhat different, and the same if we had called another 100 more. There isn’t a great way out of this problem. We can refrain from characterizing a 49-45 lead as a four-point lead, as the main Times article on this poll does today. But even this requires us to notice when the rounded and actual margins differ, which is not easy when our crosstabs and other products use rounded numbers. When we do notice a difference worth your attention, we’ll try to flag it here and elsewhere.What’s different about our polls this year?A few weeks ago, I noted that most pollsters this cycle weren’t making big methodological changes. Instead, they’re doing something more like tightening the screws on an old boat after a rough storm in 2020, rather than going out and buying a new boat.But I didn’t actually mention what screws we’ve tightened this cycle. Here’s a quick summary:We’re weighting on method of voting in 2020 — whether people voted by mail, early or absentee. It’s an important predictor of vote choice, even after considering the partisanship of a registrant. Registered Republicans who voted on Election Day, for instance, were more likely to back Donald J. Trump than those who voted by mail. Weighting on this in 2020 wouldn’t have made a major difference, but it would have brought some of our polls about half a point or so closer to the final result.We now use additional information about the attitudes of respondents in determining whether they’re likely to vote, including whether respondents are undecided; whether their views about the president align with their party; whether they like the candidate they intend to vote for; whether they back the party out of power in a midterm; and so on, all based on previous Times/Siena polls. At the same time, we now give even more weight to a respondent’s track record of voting than we did in the past.We’re changing how we characterize people who attended trade or vocational school but did not receive a college degree (Wonkiness rating: 6.5/10). The effect is a slight increase in the weight given to Republican-leaning voters without any post-high-school training, and a decrease in the weight given to the somewhat fewer Republican voters who attended some college or received an associate degree.This is a little complicated. Basically, pollsters need to decide whether people who went to technical or vocational school count as “high school graduates” or “some college” when they’re adjusting their surveys to make sure they have the right number of voters by educational group. They have to choose, because the Census Bureau doesn’t count a trade or vocational school as a level of educational attainment. In the view of the Census Bureau, that puts them in the category of high school graduates. The Times/Siena poll (and many other pollsters) previously counted them the same way.But this choice isn’t necessarily straightforward. Whether it’s the right choice in practice depends on whether census interviewers and respondents handle this question the way the census would like. If you completed a professional technical program at, say, Renton Technical College, there’s a chance you selected one of the various “some college” options on the census American Community Survey or the Current Population Survey.I’d like to run an experiment on this at some point, but for the moment we’re moving respondents like these into the “some college” category. By doing so, we modestly increase the weight we give to those categorized as high school graduates (who are pretty Republican), and decrease the weight on the other group (who still lean Republican but somewhat less so). Unfortunately, had we done this, it would have improved our result by only about a quarter of a point in 2020 — despite the number of words I just dedicated to the topic.On a totally different topic, we now consider the source of cellphones in determining whom we’ll call (Wonkiness rating: 8/10). This is the last point in this newsletter, so you can go on with the rest of your day if your eyes are glazing over, but I think it might be the most interesting to a subset of you, especially those who conduct polls.As I’ve mentioned before, we get the telephone numbers for our poll off a list of registered voters called a voter file. The telephone numbers on the voter file can have two different sources: those provided by the registrant on their voter registration form (which then wind up on the file), and those matched by L2 (our voter file vendor) from an outside source.The voter-provided cellphone numbers are the likeliest to yield a completed interview. They almost always lead to the person we’re looking for (we complete interviews only with the people named on the file). And the people contacted are a little more likely to cooperate, too. But the voter-provided cellphone numbers are almost exclusively from people who registered over the last 10 years (after all, if you registered 20 years ago, you probably didn’t have a cellphone number). As a result, they’re relatively, young, liberal, less likely to be married, less likely to own a home, and so on.The externally matched cellphone numbers are less likely to yield a completed interview. They’re less likely to belong to the people we try to reach; these people may also be less likely to take the survey, even when we’re reaching the right ones. They’re somewhat more representative of the population as a whole because anyone, regardless of when they registered, could plausibly have one of these numbers.Why does this matter? When we treated all cellphone numbers the same, we were systematically reaching fewer people who were older or married or homeowners — people more likely to have registered long ago. We called these groups in the right proportion, but we would wind up with fewer completed interviews from groups like this with more externally matched numbers.Now, we’re accounting for whether different demographic groups — like new or previously registered voters — have more self-reported phone numbers or externally matched phone numbers. As a result, we’ll dial more people from the groups with relatively high numbers of externally matched numbers.It’s hard to know how our 2020 polls would have been different if we had used this year’s approach. After all, we would have reached a different set of respondents. Most of the analyses I’ve conducted suggest that the respondents with self-reported or externally matched numbers aren’t very different politically, controlling for the characteristics we’re using in weighting. I’d note, though, that this would have been a real problem if we hadn’t been weighting on homeownership or marital status. Most pollsters using voter file data aren’t doing so; it might be worth looking at. More

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      in Elections

      How a Christian Cellphone Company Became a Rising Force in Texas Politics

      by

      GRAPEVINE, Texas — Ahead of what would usually be a sleepy spring school board election, a mass of fliers appeared on doorsteps in the Fort Worth suburbs, warning of rampant “wokeness” and “sexually explicit books” in schools, and urging changes in leadership.The fliers were part of a broad effort to shift the ideological direction of school boards in a politically crucial corner of Texas, made possible by a campaign infusion of more than $420,000 from an unlikely source: a local cellphone provider whose mission, it says, is communicating conservative Christian values.All 11 candidates backed by the company, Patriot Mobile, won their races across four school districts, including the one in Grapevine, Texas, a conservative town where the company is based and where highly rated schools are the main draw for families. In August, the board approved new policies limiting support for transgender students, clamping down on books deemed inappropriate and putting in place new rules that made it possible to be elected to the school board even without a majority of votes.The entry of a Texas cellphone company into the national tug of war over schools is part of a far more sweeping battle over the future of Texas being waged in the suburbs north of Dallas and Fort Worth.The company’s efforts have been seen as a model by Republican candidates and conservative activists, who have sought to harness parental anger over public schools as a means of holding onto suburban areas, a fight that could determine the future of the country’s largest red state.“If we lose Tarrant County, we lose Texas,” Jenny Story, Patriot Mobile’s chief operating officer, said. “If we lose Texas, we lose the country.”Glen Whitley, the top executive in Tarrant County, Texas, recognizes the rising political clout of Patriot Mobile in his part of the state. Emil Lippe for The New York TimesGlen Whitley, the top executive in Tarrant County, said the company has become an important player in politics in this part of the state. “They’ve been successful in taking over the school board in Grapevine-Colleyville, in Keller and Southlake,” Mr. Whitley, a Republican, said. He said the company appeared to be setting its sights next on city council races next year.“They’re coming after Fort Worth,” Mr. Whitley said.Patriot Mobile representatives are a frequent presence on the conservative political circuit across the country, taking praise from Steve Bannon at the Conservative Political Action Conference, buying tables at nonprofit fund-raisers and meeting with candidates from inside and outside of Texas.Modeled after a progressive, California-based cellphone provider founded in the 1980s, the company unabashedly embraces its partisan agenda, donating money to anti-abortion and other conservative causes. Lately, it has begun spending money on behalf of Republican political candidates.Peter Barnes, who helped start Credo Mobile, the California cellphone company that funded progressive causes, said he long expected that other firms would follow a similar path.“The business model is pretty simple and we expected that something similar would emerge on the right,” he said of the plan for channeling profits into politics. “But it didn’t — until now.”In North Texas, Patriot Mobile’s political spending has supported digital advertising, door hangers and campaign mailers as well as get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of its chosen candidates.Patriot Mobile openly embraces its partisan agenda, donating money to anti-abortion and other conservative causes. Emil Lippe for The New York TimesIts political activism has already changed things on the ground in Grapevine, where the nine-year-old company is based. The new policies on books and transgender issues passed 4-to-3, with the two Patriot Mobile-backed candidates making the difference.More on U.S. Schools and EducationDrop-Off Outfits: As children return to the classroom, parents with a passion for style are looking for ways to feel some sense of chic along the way to school.Turning to the Sun: Public schools are increasingly using savings from solar energy to upgrade facilities, help their communities and give teachers raises — often with no cost to taxpayers.High School Football: Supply chain problems have slowed helmet manufacturing, leaving coaches around the country scrambling to find protective gear for their teams.Teacher Shortage: While the pandemic has created an urgent search for teachers in some areas, not every district is suffering from shortages. Here are the factors in play.An array of high school students in this increasingly diverse area responded with a walkout from class, led by transgender and nonbinary students. Parents opposed to the changes have begun meeting to figure out their own response.In Grapevine’s harvest-and-wine-themed downtown, where upscale coffee shops and restaurants can be found near displays of “Ultra MAGA” sweatshirts, Patriot Mobile is headquartered in a cluster of offices unmarked from the outside.The company’s logo adorns a conference room where Senator Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael, leads a packed Bible study every Tuesday. Along one cubicle hangs a Texas flag with silhouettes of assault rifles and the words “Come and Take It,” in a nod to a well-known slogan from the Texas revolution.“We just said, ‘Look, we’re going to put God first,’” said Glenn Story, the founder and chief executive, sitting in his office on a recent afternoon, a guitar signed by Donald Trump Jr. hanging on the wall. “Which is why I haven’t erased that from the board,” he said, pointing to a list of core values written on a whiteboard, beginning with “Missionaries vs. Mercenaries.”Under Glenn Story, the chief executive, Patriot Mobile has become a growing influence in communicating conservative Christian values in Texas. Emil Lippe for The New York Times“Our mission is to support our God-given Constitutional rights,” said Ms. Story, the chief operating officer and Mr. Story’s wife.“And to honor God, always,” said Leigh Wambsganss, a vice president at the company who also heads the political action committee, Patriot Mobile Action, founded by the company’s executives.Corporations donate regularly to state and local political campaigns, but a regional company, founded with a partisan mission and willing to spend money in backyard races, is unusual. School boards across the country are increasingly becoming political battlegrounds, attracting larger sums of money and national groups into what had once been largely invisible local contests.Patriot Mobile’s political activities are focused on suburban Tarrant County, north of Fort Worth, in large part because the county has been trending blue, narrowly carried by President Biden in 2020 and by the former Democratic congressman and current candidate for governor, Beto O’Rourke, during his 2018 Senate run.Long a bastion of well-regarded schools, conservative churches and largely well-off, white neighborhoods, the area nurtured strong Tea Party groups during the Obama administration and, more recently, those that supported a Republican primary challenger to the right of Gov. Greg Abbott. It has a reputation, among some in the party, as a hotbed for hard-right politics.Downtown Grapevine, Texas, is where Patriot Mobile has its headquarters. Emil Lippe for The New York TimesThe new policies voted on in the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District have divided parents and raised concern among some teachers, some of whom said they feared becoming targets of the new school board.One of the new board members suggested as much during a Republican forum over the summer, saying the board had a “list” of teachers who she believed were activists promoting progressive ideas about race and equity.“They are just poison and they are taking our schools down,” the board member, Tammy Nakamura, said.Some teachers have begun removing books from their classrooms rather than abide by new rules that require titles to be posted online so that they can be publicly reviewed. The district canceled its annual Scholastic book fair after previous concerns about books that were “mis-merchandised” and were not age-appropriate, a district spokeswoman said.“You now have the school board approving library books, and I feel that is completely micromanaging the administration,” said Jorge Rodríguez, a school board member who voted against the new policies, adding that more than a quarter of the district’s 14,000 students were economically disadvantaged. “We’re here to educate kids and this is not helping.”The top spokesman for the district resigned a few months after being hired, citing the “divisive” atmosphere. The district’s superintendent said recently that he planned to retire at the end of the school year.A neighborhood in Grapevine. New policies in the school district there have divided parents. Emil Lippe for The New York Times“I’ve always been a staunch conservative,” said Christy Horne, a parent whose two children go to elementary school in the district. But the attacks on teachers were too much for her, Ms. Horne said. “It got personal.”But for Mario Cordova, another parent in the district, the new school board leadership has rightly given more control over curriculum and reading material to parents, many of whom were dismayed by what they saw their children learning in remote schooling during the pandemic.“Parents across the district voted for a change on the board last May and are happy to see them follow through,” Mr. Cordova wrote in an email. Opponents of the changes are “crying wolf,” he added. “This crowd has convinced themselves they cannot teach children without incessant conversations about sex and gender.”For many parents and teachers, an early sign that their schools had become a political battleground came last year with complaints over the first Black high school principal at Colleyville Heritage High School.Some parents contended that the principal, Dr. James Whitfield, had been promoting “critical race theory” and were rankled by an email he sent, days after the death of George Floyd, expressing solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters and a desire to create greater equity.“He’s going to start a diversity advisory committee? At our school? He’s going to say that Black Lives Matter?” said Dr. Whitfield, describing the reaction he encountered. The fight made national headlines and the district eventually reached a settlement with Dr. Whitfield that included his departure as principal.The district superintendent has said the decision was not about race.The fight over comments that Dr. James Whitfield made supporting Black Lives Matter protesters when he was principal of Colleyville Heritage High School made national headlines. Emil Lippe for The New York TimesA few months after Dr. Whitfield’s departure, opponents of a diversity plan in neighboring Southlake won control of the local school board, with help from a political action committee, Southlake Families. One of the founders was Ms. Wambsganss, a parent in Southlake schools and a former television news anchor. Another was Tim O’Hare, who is the Republican nominee in November’s election to lead Tarrant County.Parents both in Southlake and in Grapevine-Colleyville have been offended by the sexual content, including explicit descriptions of sexual activity, in some books offered to students, as well as certain discussions of gender and race, said Ms. Wambsganss, now at Patriot Mobile.“Parents do not believe that gender issues should be discussed in K through 12,” she said. “Especially Christian parents do not want multiple genders discussed with their children by someone who is not their parents.”She added: “I always say, it’s not about homosexuality. It’s not about heterosexuality. Stop sexualizing kids in either of those arenas.”The victories by Patriot Mobile-backed candidates surprised some parents who did not agree with the new direction in the district.On a recent morning, a dozen of those parents and community members gathered at the local botanical garden. For many, it was the first time they had met after finding one another through one of the many proliferating Facebook pages dedicated to the school district conflicts.“I ask myself every day, what did I bring my children into,” said Katherine Parks, who moved to the area from France.Marceline, a student at Grapevine High School, helped organize a walkout.Emil Lippe for The New York Times“We were Swift Boated by these people,” said Tom Hart, a Republican former city councilman in Colleyville, referring to the political attacks that helped sink John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004. “We cannot combat $400,000 in funding from the outside.”As parents met to strategize, some students at Grapevine High School, where the Gay-Straight Alliance club was shuttered for lack of a faculty sponsor, have already begun to find ways to protest. A student started a book club for reading banned books. A group of friends organized a walkout.“We can find solidarity, and we can find safety in each other,” said Marceline, who asked that only their first name be used out of concern for possible reprisals. “Because we cannot trust the adults.”About 100 students joined in the walkout. No similar protest has taken place at nearby Colleyville Heritage High School, and for many students, the beginning of the school year has proceeded, more or less, as it always has.In Grapevine, books and the discussion of gender and race continue to be hotly debated topics.Emil Lippe for The New York Times More