Between Showers

The Bradley effect in election history

What the FraggleRock is the “Bradley Effect”? It’s a fun name for the theory that black candidates will poll much stronger than the actual election results. SNL exshpleens further:

Is this Bradley effect whosiwhatsis RIKKA-RACISSST? well, some blonde lady writes in a column that if the explanation for such a dichotomy is true, then really its the opposite of racism: It is fear of being accused of racism.

Political correctness has taught people to lie to pollsters rather than be forced to explain why they’re not voting for the African-American.

This is how two typical voters might answer a pollster’s question: “Whom do you support for president?”

Average Obama voter: “Obama.” (Name of average Obama voter: “Mickey Mouse.”)

Average McCain voter: “I’m voting for McCain, but I swear it’s just about the issues. It’s not because Obama’s black. If Barack Obama were a little more moderate — hey, I’d vote for Colin Powell. But my convictions force me to vote for the candidate who just happens to be white. Say, do you know where I can get Patti LaBelle tickets?”

In addition to the social pressure to constantly prove you’re not a racist, apparently there is massive social pressure to prove you’re not a Republican. No one is lying about voting for McCain just to sound cool.

Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by about 6 to 10 points.

She goes on to mention the perplexing fact that accusations of racism have previously notsomuch been claimed in these notable cases:

–1976: Jimmy Carter narrowly beat Gerald Ford 50.1 percent to 48 percent.
Bradley effect?: on Sept. 1, Carter led Ford by 15 points. Just weeks before the election, on Oct. 16, 1976, Carter led Ford in the Gallup Poll by 6 percentage points — down from his 33-point Gallup Poll lead in August.

–1980: Ronald Reagan beat Carter by nearly 10 points, 51 percent to 41 percent.
Bradley effect?: A Gallup Poll released days before the election on Oct. 27, had Carter leading Reagan 45 percent to 42 percent.

–1984: Reagan washes America dark burgundy-red with Walter Mondale’s blood by winning 58.8 percent to 40 percent, — the largest electoral landslide in U.S. history.
Bradley effect?: Oct. 15, The New York Daily News published a poll showing Mondale with only a 4-point deficit to Reagan, 45 percent to 41 percent. A Harris Poll about the same time showed Reagan with only a 9-point lead. The Oct. 19 New York Times/CBS News Poll had Mr. Reagan ahead of Mondale by 13 points. All these polls underestimated Reagan’s actual margin of victory by 6 to 15 points.

–1988: George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis by a whopping 53.4 percent to 45.6 percent.
Bradley effect?: A New York Times/CBS News Poll on Oct. 5 had Bush leading the Greek homunculus by a statistically insignificant 2 points — 45 percent to 43 percent. (For the kids out there: Before it became a clearinghouse for anti-Bush conspiracy theories, CBS News was considered a credible journalistic entity.)

A week later — or one tank ride later, depending on who’s telling the story — on Oct. 13, Bush was leading Dukakis in The New York Times Poll by a mere 5 points.

Admittedly, a 3- to 6-point error is not as crazily wrong as the 6- to 15-point error in 1984. But it’s striking that even small “margin of error” mistakes never seem to benefit Republicans.

–1992: Bill Clinton beat the first President Bush 43 percent to 37.7 percent. (Ross Perot got 18.9 percent of Bush’s voters that year.)
Bradley effect?: On Oct. 18, a Newsweek Poll had Clinton winning 46 percent to 31 percent, and a CBS News Poll showed Clinton winning 47 percent to 35 percent.
So in 1992, the polls had Clinton 12 to 15 points ahead, but he won by only 5.3 points.

–1996: Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole 49 percent to 40 percent.
Bradley effect?: And yet on Oct. 22, 1996, The New York Times/CBS News Poll showed Clinton leading by a massive 22 points, 55 percent to 33 percent.

–2000: George Bush and Al Gore basically tied. Bush won in the recounts, yes, but only by a few hundred, so “tie” is really the only fair way to describe it.
Bradley effect?: The New York Times/CBS News Poll on Oct. 3, 2000, showed Gore winning by 45 percent to 39 percent.

–2004: G. Dubya Bush beat John “did you know I served in Vietnam??” Kerry, 50.7 percent to 48.3 percent.
Bradley effect?: Most of the October polls showed the candidates in a dead-heat, with Bush 1 to 3 points ahead, but the exit polls on election day had “Dewey defeats Truman”esque tales of a clear Kerry victory.