Demise of the Bradley Effect

[jducoeur]

For those who were curious about how the supposed "Bradley Effect" (that people would tell pollsters that they were voting for the black guy, but not actually do so) played out in reality, I commend today's editorial column in electoral-vote.com.

Summary: they averaged the last round of polls for a bunch of swing states, scaled it to adjust for the undecideds, and compared it with the way the vote actually went. There's nary a hint of the Bradley Effect -- in no case did Obama do significantly worse than the polls said, and he actually did considerably *better* than the polls indicated in a couple of those states.

So the general verdict is that you can put a fork in this long-hypothesized political force: in its biggest test, there's no evidence that it had any noticeable impact.

Comments

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

The head of the Dukmejian campaign (the man Bradley ran against, and lost to) came out with a column a few days ago vigorously protesting the entire concept. He provided information suggesting that the "Bradley Effect" was a myth to begin with, and that Dukmejian's win was reasonable given all the polling data at the time.

[meiczyslaw.livejournal.com]

I saw an article that managed an interview with Bradley's internal pollster, and he was also of the opinion that there was no Bradley effect. He seemed to think that Mervin Field (he of the Field Poll) didn't account for the absentee ballots (which were new at the time) -- and then blew smoke instead of admitting a flaw in his model.

It's still not a good idea to trust the Field Poll. Among other things, they were totally wrong on Prop. 8 this year.

[jducoeur]

Yep -- actually, this point came out a fair while ago. I'm sure that I heard it made at least several weeks ago, maybe even a month or two. But it hadn't stopped people from asserting that The Bradley Effect was real, and would drag Obama down...

[selkiechick]

It's for things like this, that I hope that Nate Silver and the folks over at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ keep going, because even though I have had some statistics, I appreciate having someone give intelligent commentary on polls, statistics and such, and how we use them, and thereby get the tools I need to read them critically.

[jducoeur]

Yaas -- I feel much the same way about electoral-vote. The summary map at the top is nice, but it's the editorial content and analysis that kept me coming back every day...

[doubleplus.livejournal.com]

And Sean and Brett visited the campaign office I worked out of (though I wasn't there at the time) and wrote a glowing article about it. Bonus!

(I was actually in touch with Sean by email, and I like to think they picked that office when they were in Northern Virginia because I suggested it.)

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

Instead time to start talking about the Stevens Effect: people are willing to vote for the Republican felon, but not to admit it to pollsters...

[meiczyslaw.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's called "pleading the fifth". ;)

Reminds me of a saying a friend of mine from New York used to have about Alfonse D'Amato:

"Sure, he can be bought. But he stays bought!"

[jducoeur]

Yaas. And in the defense of the Alaskan voters, Stevens may be a crook, but he was a pretty *effective* crook: he used his seniority to benefit the state quite a bit. That buys a lot of loyalty, and I'm not very surprised that he did better than everyone was saying...

is he really?

[hudebnik.livejournal.com]

Although take a look at this blog.

In a nutshell, the author finds it highly suspicious that this year, with

• a recently-convicted incumbent Senator in a close race,


• a popular Governor on a Presidential ticket,


• a close House race,


• a 4% increase over 2004 in registered voters,


• record-breaking early-voter turnout, and


• voter turnout significantly up everywhere else in the U.S.,

Alaska's total voter turnout seems to have fallen by 11% from 2004, to its second-lowest percentage on record. Not only did Stevens do better than expected, possibly winning re-election, but Don Young (the Republican incumbent Representative) has gone from an 8-point loss in most pre-election polls to an 8-point win in the election itself.

Just quoting what Shannyn has to say; I don't know much about it myself.