Will the "Bradley Effect" play a key-role in this election ?
02 November 2008 à 16h58
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Obama is leading in the polls. But do polls underestimate the percentage of voters who say they will vote for a black candidate only in order not to be considered as racists ? How many of the voters will vote for McCain on D-Day, just because he is white ?
Tom Bradley (Photo Reuters)
Barack Obama still has a comfortable lead over John McCain in the polls. In the latest polls, he leads the Republican candidate by 7 points.
But this number could be wrong, on November the 4th, if the « Bradley Effect » comes into play.
What is the Bradley Effect ? It is named after former Los Angeles mayor, Tom Bradley. This Afro-American ran for governor of California in 1982. Bradley was in the lead for months in polls over the white Republican George Deukmejian. Even exit polls showed Bradley would win by a wide margin. But Bradley lost the election.
Analysts said polls were wrong because most voters said they would vote for the black candidate, so that they would not appear to be racists. Once they were in the voting booth, they voted for the white candidate.
The same « effect » happened in the next years in different local elctions, but usually with less impact.
Will Obama suffer from the same effect ? It’s almost impossible to tell. It’s been more than 20 years since Bradley’s experience. Mentalities have changed, but analysts consider that the Bradley Effect can still account for six points in this election. Which means it might be much harder for Senator Obama to win.
However, many things make it hard to tell for this election. First, it is not a local but a general election, and the effect could be very different at this scale. Then, some analysts say this effect could be reversed by the fact that some Republicans are not going to say they’re voting for Obama because they do not want to tell they are going to vote Democrat for the first time.
Last, but not least, there might be an opposite demographic effect on D-Day. It is called the « cellphone effect ». Opinion polls asked voters who they are going to vote for through their landline. However, more and more young voters, who are likely to vote for Obama, only have cellphones, which makes it harder to measure their impact on the vote.
As Bill Schneider, CNN’s senior political analyst recently said, « We’ve never had a black presidential candidate as a major nominee, so the polls don’t have any history at all when it comes to national elections. »
Tom Bradley (Photo Reuters)
But this number could be wrong, on November the 4th, if the « Bradley Effect » comes into play.
What is the Bradley Effect ? It is named after former Los Angeles mayor, Tom Bradley. This Afro-American ran for governor of California in 1982. Bradley was in the lead for months in polls over the white Republican George Deukmejian. Even exit polls showed Bradley would win by a wide margin. But Bradley lost the election.
Analysts said polls were wrong because most voters said they would vote for the black candidate, so that they would not appear to be racists. Once they were in the voting booth, they voted for the white candidate.
The same « effect » happened in the next years in different local elctions, but usually with less impact.
Will Obama suffer from the same effect ? It’s almost impossible to tell. It’s been more than 20 years since Bradley’s experience. Mentalities have changed, but analysts consider that the Bradley Effect can still account for six points in this election. Which means it might be much harder for Senator Obama to win.
However, many things make it hard to tell for this election. First, it is not a local but a general election, and the effect could be very different at this scale. Then, some analysts say this effect could be reversed by the fact that some Republicans are not going to say they’re voting for Obama because they do not want to tell they are going to vote Democrat for the first time.
Last, but not least, there might be an opposite demographic effect on D-Day. It is called the « cellphone effect ». Opinion polls asked voters who they are going to vote for through their landline. However, more and more young voters, who are likely to vote for Obama, only have cellphones, which makes it harder to measure their impact on the vote.
As Bill Schneider, CNN’s senior political analyst recently said, « We’ve never had a black presidential candidate as a major nominee, so the polls don’t have any history at all when it comes to national elections. »
