Pollsters facing election's perfect storm

[Fluffdaddy]

Three new election factors are keeping pollsters up nights

• The Bradley-Wilder Effect
I have written about this issue here before, but the critical idea is not that some voters "just won't vote for Barack Obama because he's black." Rather, what pollsters fear is that in the context of a survey interview, some respondents may fail to tell the truth about their preferences due to some "social discomfort" arising from Obama's race.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, in a series of contests between black and white candidates -- including the historic gubernatorial candidacies of Tom Bradley in California in 1982 and Doug Wilder in Virginia in 1989 -- polls typically understated support for the white candidate. The black candidates would receive roughly the same percentage of the vote on Election Day that they did on the last poll, while the white candidates did surprisingly better than the polls predicted. Handicappers started to assume that most of the undecided vote in such contests would "break" for the white candidate.

Over the last 10 years, according to a paper by Harvard post-doctoral fellow Daniel Hopkins that studied 133 statewide races between 1989 and 2006, the apparent polling bias in such races largely disappeared. But can we assume that Bradley-Wilder will remain in remission this fall?

Link to full article

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27084438

[NCDem60]

1. Not to worry for this reason.........

The economy trumps everything this time. Even race. People are getting downright scared. People lost jobs last month at a rate of 5000 per day. Third quarter 401K statements are beginning to arrive with more bad news. Almost everyone knows someone who is facing foreclosure. When someone is trying to break into your house, you don't give a damn about the race of the cop that shows up to help you. I've avoided saying this until now but this race is over. Obama is seen as being more qualified on economic issues and in this election that has turned out to be the ace of trumps.

[Fluffdaddy]

2. You may be right, as long as something big don't happens

[obamaforme]

3. that is what James Carville just said on CNN

[Fluffdaddy]

5. The freeper's pray every nite for another terrorist hit.

[NCDem60]

7. You probalby won't believe me but

I didn't see it. :shrug:

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Interesting article. Even though Stephanopolous is a doofus.

We cannot let our guard down and cannot allow ourselves to get comfortable.

It's not over until it's over.

[malaise]

6. If the Bradley effect was still working

Barck Obama would not be the Democratic Party candidate for President.

[Old and In the Way]

8. I agree....the test for that was in the primaries. No Sale.

And who's to say there might not be an anti-Bradley effect? There may well be a % of people who will vote for Obama but publicly profess support for McCain. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this becomes the case on Election Day.

[Lil Missy]

9. I heard someone say on MSNBC today that a REVERSE Bradley effect might well happen this time.

For clarity, meaning that people might say that they are voting for McSame because they don't want to go on record supporting a Black candidate. But once they get in the voting booth, they will vote their pocketbooks instead.

I'm sorry I don't recall which program I heard that, or who said it. If someone else saw the same thing, I'll edit my post to add those specifics.

[Lil Missy]

10. kick

(before time to edit runs out)

[Lil Missy]

11. ***UPDATE*** I just saw it again.

It was on Rachael Maddow's show. The person who said that was Gov Mike Easley (D) - NC. He was on her show, ironically, due to NC leaning Blue for the first time since the 70's.

:applause:

[norepubsin08]

12. Or..could it be that whitey is cheating?

[McCamy Taylor]

13. The Bradley Effect has been debunked. It was never more than 1-2% points even

in the Tom Bradley race. He lost that because of a huge number of Republican absentee ballots than no one expected (why did no one ask about possible GOP vote fraud?). And Wilder lost more points because of the "front-runner effect" than the Bradley Effect. And since 1996, there has been no Bradley effect at all.

The Bradley Effect is a myth and these Freepers talking about McCain picking up 5-10 points from it are out of their minds. What they are really hoping for is 5-10 points of e-vote fraud that Fox will attribute to the Bradley Effect---but the problem is that the Effect will only be seen in Republican controlled areas where there is no verifiable paper trail.