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

[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.