Why the Bradley Effect might be dead
The Bradley Effect in U.S. politics is attributed to the inflated polling numbers for non-White candidates. The effect was brought to light in the 1982 California gubernatorial race when Tom Bradley lost the race in spite of being significantly ahead in voter polls. It is based on the assumption that voters inaccurately tell pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for non-white candidates but end up voting for their opponents on election day. They ‘lie’ to the pollsters to appear politically correct or do not want to be seen as racist for not voting for a minority candidate. By various accounts, this effect is said to be nearly 7 percent i.e. if Barack Obama was 7 percentage points ahead then he would actually be dead even with John McCain (remember Clinton’s ‘white working class Americans’?). Hence all the skepticism for his wide lead. But is the Bradley Effect really that significant and still persistent in today’s political scene.
Barack Obama has been campaigning for President almost non-stop for almost 2 years now and everyone in this country has heard of him or heard him speak, or seen him. Thanks to the 50-state Democratic Primary, Obama has visited virtually every corner of this vast country and people have had a chance to listen to him and judge him on the content of his character rather than the color of his skin. His win in all-white previously-Republican Iowa was symptomatic of change. His near-omnipresence on the media spotlight changed perceptions better or for worse like the attitude expressed by the person below:
“One thing you have to remember is that Obama, he’s half white and he was raised by his white mother. So his views are more white than black really.” Ms. Mendive looked tentative. “Well, that’s true.” Ms. Vance said she was so used to looking at Mr. Obama, “I don’t see the color of his face anymore [source].”
Another aspect for the weak Bradley Effect on Obama’s candidature may have been his bi-racial ethnicity. He was the ‘typical’ black candidate and although the Rev.Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Ayer scandals tried painting him as an angry Black Panther, his cool demeanor, eloquent speeches, and articulate policy stances made it difficult for his rivals to paint him as in the mold of an prejudiced version of the average black man. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight looked at the primary polls and the actual results and found that Obama in fact overperformed by 3.3 points on election day.
Much has changed in the U.S. since the Civil Rights movement and an entire generation has now come of age when racial segregation was never an institutional barrier. Of course, much remains to be done and you still see signs of discrimination but the youth having grown up with their minority peers are less likely to be racist. Obama’s strategy of focusing on the youth vote and emphasizing voter registration may have put paid to the hopes of his rivals hoping for the Bradley Effect.
Finally, the Bradley Effect may exist in certain parts of the country like the Deep South or the Appalachian states but these states are hardly battleground states and vote Republican anyway. The national polls may exaggerate the impact of the effect since it does not account for the disproportionate number of voters who are least likely to exhibit such tendencies. In fact, on the national level there appears to be no evidence of the Bradley Effect; in fact the effect has waned since the mid-1990s [PDF link] and there appears to be no effect right now.
And of course, when the economy is down in the dumps, people are less concerned about voting on their racial prejudices and more concerned on who will protect their jobs and boost the economy. McCain has floundered all over the place and any other Republican candidate probably would have handled it better but an economy in trouble has traditional benefited Democrats. And people seem to care less if the Democratic candidate is black.
