The Bradley Effect

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BELEGON

You seem to forget the Democrat Stupidity Factor.

Deduct 3% for being a felon, unregistered to vote, and voting at the wrong precinct (in the wrong county). Deduct 2% for illiteracy and pressing the wrong buttons.

REMEMBER! DEMOCRATS APPEAL TO THE CARNIVAL FREAKS!

 

[Boxlicker101]

Latest Gallop poll:

Obama 51%, McCain 42%

Give it a break, Box.

The link in Liar's post shows it considerably closer, and that is before the Bradley effect.

We should all know on the morning of Nov. 5.

 

[john-the-author]

One can hope not anyway.

Honestly I don't see it making a dent in the election, granted obama is not a good old white guy. There is a big old thing in his favor though, he is not Bush and he is not a Republican. Think about it, anytime the nation is upset with the current president, the guy from the other party is elected. Doesn't have to be much to be upset about, look at Bush, besides the incredibly questionable outcome of the election and the probable help he got in Florida, he came in after Clinton, the guy who got blowjobs from an aide in the oval office.

How he managed to keep it as close as it was going to Florida, I mean seriously, if Clinton was not a factor in the voting I don't see Bush getting more than like 30% of the votes. The man is not a public speaker in any sense of the word. He was helped by the other guy not going on a vigorous campaign, but when all is said and done, Bush more or less got elected because Clinton cheated on his wife and lied about it.

I'm rather perplexed on why McCain is even running this year. Granted he isn't the most wonderful of public speakers himself, but he is still one of the better overall people to run in recent memory, and he must know he has a snowballs chance in hell of getting elected.

i'm not a McCain backer or anything, he happens to be a congressman from Arizona and I get to see him on the news and stuff on occassion. Never saw him change his mind about anything, until this year anyway but I suppose the whole campaigning to be elected president screws the whole sticking to the guns thing.

I've been impressed that people in Indiana--die-hard Republicans beyond anything you've ever seen--are having trouble deciding who they're going to vote for. Looking at the past 8 years must have REALLY pissed them off to change their minds; you can get thrown out of your churches and social networks for even hinting that you aren't voting Republican there.

 

[Huckleman2000]

If you want statistics, and a good collection of various polls, as well as a fairly fair assessment of how reliable the different pollers are, this is a pretty good site.

Sure, guy's a Barack supporter, but first and foremost a huge statistics geek, and everything is done by the number, so to speak. I think he's a major name in the field of baseball stats, or something like that.

Thanks for that link.
Yes, that guy is a stats geek! If you follow it, though, and understand what he's doing with the different weighting and modeling, it makes eminent sense.

 

[Liar]

The link in Liar's post shows it considerably closer

Um.

The four national polls released recently that is rated as most reliable shows Obama leads of +5 +7 +10 +10 on that site.

 

[amicus]

A query to the illuminati here...the Bradley effect is white voters saying in the polls they will vote for a black but in the actual election the vote white, a racial decision.

I did make mention of that in an earlier post. However...we all know that African Americans always vote at about nine to one for whatever Democrat is running for office.

In the primaries, the black vote went for Obama in excess of 95 percent....my query is, and you already see this coming, is this not a reverse Bradley effect, with Blacks voting based on race?

And should that not be questioned as much as whites voting habits?

Just askin'....

amicus...

 

[Selena_Kitt]

We should all know on the morning of Nov. 5.

We've all believed THAT before.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101
We should all know on the morning of Nov. 5.

We've all believed THAT before.

Yeah, that's why I said "should" instead of "will."

 

[Boxlicker101]

A query to the illuminati here...the Bradley effect is white voters saying in the polls they will vote for a black but in the actual election the vote white, a racial decision.

I did make mention of that in an earlier post. However...we all know that African Americans always vote at about nine to one for whatever Democrat is running for office.

In the primaries, the black vote went for Obama in excess of 95 percent....my query is, and you already see this coming, is this not a reverse Bradley effect, with Blacks voting based on race?

And should that not be questioned as much as whites voting habits?

Just askin'....

amicus...

I have pointed this out in the past, but it tended to be overlooked.

 

[sr71plt]

I've been impressed that people in Indiana--die-hard Republicans beyond anything you've ever seen--are having trouble deciding who they're going to vote for. Looking at the past 8 years must have REALLY pissed them off to change their minds; you can get thrown out of your churches and social networks for even hinting that you aren't voting Republican there.

Well, it's probably been a long time since both candidates were running against the incumbent Republican administration.

 

[Huckleman2000]

I have pointed this out in the past, but it tended to be overlooked.

The Bradley Effect is an explanation for the difference in polling results and actual voting results. The explanation is that white voters didn't want to appear racist, and so they told pollsters (especially when the phone interviewer 'sounded' black) they would vote for the black candidate, and then did not.

For it to be a "reverse" effect, we would have to observe a lower percentage of black votes for the black candidate than predicted by the pollsters. This has not appeared to be the case so far in primary voting for Obama, i.e., black voters support the black candidate in numbers close to those predicted by polling. I suppose it's possible that black people might lie to pollsters because they don't want them to know they are voting for McCain, but since they are a small minority of a minority, I expect the effect would be negligible.

The Bradley Effect is not the same thing as voting according to race, which is what you seem to imply.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Deleted. Posted in the wrong place.

 

[Boxlicker101]

The Bradley Effect is an explanation for the difference in polling results and actual voting results. The explanation is that white voters didn't want to appear racist, and so they told pollsters (especially when the phone interviewer 'sounded' black) they would vote for the black candidate, and then did not.

For it to be a "reverse" effect, we would have to observe a lower percentage of black votes for the black candidate than predicted by the pollsters. This has not appeared to be the case so far in primary voting for Obama, i.e., black voters support the black candidate in numbers close to those predicted by polling. I suppose it's possible that black people might lie to pollsters because they don't want them to know they are voting for McCain, but since they are a small minority of a minority, I expect the effect would be negligible.

The Bradley Effect is not the same thing as voting according to race, which is what you seem to imply.

I know what the Bradley Effect is. I was just commenting on how almost all Black Democrats voted for Obama, and wondering if it would have been called racism if almost all White voters had voted for Hillary. If so, then what would have been the difference?

 

[sr71plt]

I know what the Bradley Effect is. I was just commenting on how almost all Black Democrats voted for Obama, and wondering if it would have been called racism if almost all White voters had voted for Hillary. If so, then what would have been the difference?

Pretty much anyone can vote for anyone on the ballot they want. So, maybe it would be called exercising their vote?

Yes, I'm tired of your crap.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101
I know what the Bradley Effect is. I was just commenting on how almost all Black Democrats voted for Obama, and wondering if it would have been called racism if almost all White voters had voted for Hillary. If so, then what would have been the difference?

Pretty much anyone can vote for anyone on the ballot they want. So, maybe it would be called exercising their vote?

Yes, I'm tired of your crap.

I realize that people can vote on whatever basis they like, including race. However, I noted a while ago that Obama got almost all the black vote in the Democratic primaries. I don't believe it was ever described as racist, and nobody, including I, would ever suggest it would be illegal.

However - and this is strictly a theoretical question - would it have been called racism if almost all white Democratic voters had voted for Hillary? A majority of them did, but not enough to win enough states to win the nomination.

 

[hotwetcouple24]

If The Bradley Effect is Gone, What Happened To It?

RELAX, you're talkin about statistics, it's best to go to someone who knows a lot about it.

 

[DeeZire]

Some pundits are saying that any Bradley affect will be more than offset by new voters energized by Obama - especially considering that these new voters don't show up in the polls because they're all on cell phones.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

DEE ZIRE

Youngsters are notorious for responding to polls but not voting. And many dont know their ass from a hole in the road, and will try to vote at the wrong location. So Obama's margin may wither.

 

[epiphany65]

Here's an opinion piece by Lance Tarrance, who was Bradley opponent George Deukmejian's lead pollster in 1982. He says the Bradley Effect was as the result of bad polling, not racism.

October 13, 2008
The Bradley Effect - Selective Memory
By V. Lance Tarrance, Jr.

Now that polls indicate Senator Barack Obama is the favorite to win, some analysts predict a racially biased "Bradley Effect" could prevent Obama from winning a majority on November 4th. That is a pernicious canard and is unworthy of 21st century political narratives. I should know. I was there in 1982 at "ground zero" in California when I served George Deukmejian as his general election pollster and as a member of his strategy team when he defeated African-American Democratic California gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley, not once but twice, in 1982 and again in 1986.

Bradley Effect believers assume that there is an undetectable tendency in the behavior of some white voters who tell pollsters that they are "undecided" when in fact their true preference is to vote against the black candidate. This so-called effect suggests the power or advantage to alter an outcome - a pretty serious charge. This would render poll projections inaccurate (overstating both the number of undecided voters and the African-American candidate's margin over a white opponent) and create an unaccounted for different outcome. However, it is indeed a "theory in search of data."

The hype surrounding the Bradley Effect has evolved to where some political pundits believe in 2008 that Obama must win in the national pre-election polls by 6-9 points before he can be assured a victory. That's absurd. There won't be a 6-9 point Bradley Effect -- there can't be, since few national polls show a large enough amount of undecided voters and it's in the undecided column where racism supposedly hides.

The other reason I reject the Bradley Effect in 2008 is because there was not a Bradley Effect in the 1982 California Governor's race, either. Even though Tom Bradley had been slightly ahead in the polls in 1982, due to sampling error, it was statistically too close to call. For example, the daily Tarrance and Associates tracking polls for the Deukmejian campaign showed the following weekly summations (N=1000 each) during the month of October:


Week of:
Oct.7th Oct. 14th Oct. 21st Oct. 28 Nov. 1

Bradley 49 45 46 45 45

Deukmejian 37 41 41 42 44


It is obvious that this election was closing fast. Yet, Bradley's win was projected by the most prominent public pollster in the state, Mervin Field, who boasted on Election Day that Tom Bradley would defeat George Deukmejian, "making the Los Angeles mayor the first elected black governor in American history" (UPI 11-3-82). The reason for Field's enthusiasm was that his last weekend polling showed a 7-point margin for Bradley, but this was totally at variance from the Tarrance and Associates internal tracking results. Field's own exit polls, on Election Day itself, where voters were questioned after they left the polling places, also predicted a Bradley win. This caused the San Fransisco Chronicle, ignoring the closeness of the election and mixed polling results, to print 170,000 copies of its early morning Wednesday edition under the headline "Bradley Win Projected."

Also at variance with the Mervin Field exit polls were the NBC and the CBS networks, using both exit polls and actual returns from key precincts, when they declared George Deukmejian the winner and not Tom Bradley the winner. In an AP report, a KNBC newscaster told viewers on Election Night "...half of the polls are wrong and I don't know who's right." The only thing we know for sure is the election was too close to call, and some of the Election Day projections were right and others (notably Mervin Fields' projections) were wrong and, unfortunately, most of this explanation because of selective memory has not been carried forward to this day.

The Field Poll inaugurated the speculation that led to the baseless Bradley Effect theory when, after the 1982 election, Field said "race was a factor in the Bradley loss" (AP 11-4-82). Mervin Field cited no data, but only speculated that white conservative voters of both parties were more undecided and that he may have over-represented minority voters in his polling. Thus, the Bradley Effect was born amidst some major polling errors and a confusing array of mixed predictions, hardly a firm foundation to construct a theory.

Even later analysis of the 1982 election revealed the weakness in the Bradley Effect theory as Bradley actually won on election day turnout, but lost the absentee vote so badly that Deukmejian pulled ahead to win. That Bradley won the vote on Election Day would hardly seem to suggest a hidden or last minute anti-black backlash--on the contrary, it suggests how easy it would have been for weekend polls and Election Day exit polls to get it wrong, since the decisive group of voters had largely already voted before the final weekend and never showed up at the polls to answer the questions of exit pollsters.

When Barack Obama lost the 2008 New Hampshire primary after all seven pre-election polls had Obama projected as the winner, the Bradley Effect got a second wind, blown along by a lot of misinformed press speculation asserting that our nation was still suffering from latent racism. A few weeks later, after much analysis of election demographics, and with a more thoughtful examination, it is clear that race was not the determinant that gave Hillary Clinton a surprising victory. In fact, it was a combination of an older brand of feminism, the open party system that encouraged independents to vote in the primary and some Obama campaign hubris that caused the result.

The New Hampshire polling debacle was also eerily familiar to those of us who witnessed first-hand the 1982 California election day errors. A lesson learned from 1982 campaign, but not remembered in 2008, was what a San Francisco Chronicle editor said the day after the 1982 election, "It seemed logical...to project a continued gain for Bradley." There was never a consensus of data to support this logic. The 2008 New Hampshire update on the so-called Bradley Effect also falls short of proving this false theory of latent racism. Instead, the New Hampshire debacle should be labeled for what it is, the worst polling disaster since "Dewey Beats Truman."

The Deukmejian campaign tracking polls did not confirm any Bradley Effect and to interject this type of speculation into the 2008 presidential election is not only folly, but insulting to the political maturity of our nation's voters. To allow this theory to continue to persist anymore than 25 years is to damage our democracy, no matter who wins.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

EPIPHANY

There is still a large pool of undecideds out there. Plus! Democrats are notorious for attracting people who wont vote or are too impaired to vote correctly. Gore would be President if his Florida voters punched their cards correctly, didnt vote for Pat Buchanan, and went to the right precinct. In 2008 significantly more Republicans voted early than did Democrats.

JIM JOHNSON PREDICTION: Obama wins the popular vote, McCain wins the Electoral College.

 

[epiphany65]

EPIPHANY

There is still a large pool of undecideds out there. Plus! Democrats are notorious for attracting people who wont vote or are too impaired to vote correctly. Gore would be President if his Florida voters punched their cards correctly, didnt vote for Pat Buchanan, and went to the right precinct. In 2008 significantly more Republicans voted early than did Democrats.

JIM JOHNSON PREDICTION: Obama wins the popular vote, McCain wins the Electoral College.

I think that Obama fears the things you mention. Today he told supporters not to "get cocky":
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/16/campaign.wrap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

In our recent election here in Canada the incumbent Prime Minister, Harper, warned party faithful that he might lose. You never hear a politician predict that about him/herself, but I think it was a tactic to ensure people went out to vote since it was a close race and it worked.

 

[sr71plt]

This election has a voter phenomena that is new, brought about by the Obama campaign's effective use of the Internet and his appeal to younger citizens. New registrations are shooting through the roof. We saw the effect in the primaries, where something like three times the number of people voted in the Democratic primaries as voted in the Republican primaries. Registrations are up 34 percent in my city--and 15 percent in the surrounding county (by a Virginia quirk, Charlottesville is an independent city completely surrounded by a separate county). Mostly new voters, with every evidence that most of them are Obama voters. This alone is likely to put my state of Virginia into the Democratic column for the first time in decades. I see no reason to think that the phenomena is playing differently anywhere else. If these new voters took the initiative to register just this year, there's no reason to think they won't carry through and vote. There is no historical precedence to suggest otherwise.

Those who think this is either a close election--or one where McCain will take the electoral college--unless there's some sort of dramatic turnaround in the next three weeks (which, of course, could happen), aren't thinking rationally.

I've just been listening to Fox news (to get another side of the reporting on last night's debate to compare with CNN's reporting). They are already talking beyond the presidential election to how important the congressional elections are. (Which is true; they are. And there's every indication the Democrats will strengthen their majorities in those houses in this election too.)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

EPIPHANY

Obama is wise to fear. Gore lost the election for the reasons Obama dreads. It's no small problem that many Democrats are so accustomed to using aliases they likely dont have valid ID for who they are. When they arrive at the poll they dont have photo ID, and the game is up. Some people are wise to fear arrest for voter fraud. Bet the farm the GOP knows who to watch for. The precincts in Florida will likely have more attorneys present than voters.

I'm also expecting the GOP to pull its zipper down and piss in Obama's punch just about the time the celebration party begins. Expect a stink bomb close to the election.

 

[sweetness6280]

A very good commentary by Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and author.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/16/brazile.obama/index.html?iref=hpmostpop

 

[Boxlicker101]

This election has a voter phenomena that is new, brought about by the Obama campaign's effective use of the Internet and his appeal to younger citizens. New registrations are shooting through the roof. We saw the effect in the primaries, where something like three times the number of people voted in the Democratic primaries as voted in the Republican primaries. Registrations are up 34 percent in my city--and 15 percent in the surrounding county (by a Virginia quirk, Charlottesville is an independent city completely surrounded by a separate county). Mostly new voters, with every evidence that most of them are Obama voters. This alone is likely to put my state of Virginia into the Democratic column for the first time in decades. I see no reason to think that the phenomena is playing differently anywhere else. If these new voters took the initiative to register just this year, there's no reason to think they won't carry through and vote. There is no historical precedence to suggest otherwise.

Those who think this is either a close election--or one where McCain will take the electoral college--unless there's some sort of dramatic turnaround in the next three weeks (which, of course, could happen), aren't thinking rationally.

I've just been listening to Fox news (to get another side of the reporting on last night's debate to compare with CNN's reporting). They are already talking beyond the presidential election to how important the congressional elections are. (Which is true; they are. And there's every indication the Democrats will strengthen their majorities in those houses in this election too.)

Some of the new registrans might have been signed up by ACORN and might be bogus. There is a good chance many of them won't vote, and might not even be eligible.