It's almost over- Obama and the Bradley Effect..

reply to post by AndrewTB


You stole my next post, i agree. And piggy back that on my statement of what the 25YO will do.

So where was the Bradley Effect when Obama beat Clinton?

Polls show that during the primaries Obama outperformed in several states that were originally leaning towards Clinton and held many of the states he performed well in.

[edit on 24-10-2008 by davion]

reply to post by davion


Black vs. Women: The Bradley effect hit a woman harder when it comes to running the country. People trusted a male more. IMO

Originally posted by Fromabove
McCain will take Pennsylvania, Virginia and all of the swing states. He will also take all the states where there is a 5% lead for Obama. McCain will win the presidential election with over 290 to 300 electorial votes. And he will win the popular vote by 52%.

remember, you heard it here first.

The margins you speculate McCain will win by line up with my projections. I am giving McCain a slimmer lead than you by .5 %. McCain 51.5 percent% of the popular vote, winning all but one lucky swing state. (I'll let you figure that one out for yourself. )

reply to post by davion


There are some people who believe that it happened in New Hampshire and that it was the reason he lost there despite having a significant lead in the polls the day prior. Anotherdad also points out, quite possibly correctly, that a similar phenomenon to the Bradley Effect may have adversely affected Hillary and that both candidates were affected roughly equally, Hillary perhaps a little worse, in the Dem race as a whole.

Given the propensity of many on the left to toss around charges of racism at those on the right, I would expect the Bradley effect to become more pronounced the further the electorate and individual voter leans to the right. Obviously, this means that it should be more of an issue in the general electorate than it would be in a Democratic primary.


[edit on 24-10-2008 by vor78]

If anything the polls are skewed towards McCain. There are many Americans that will vote for Obama that would never admit it to anyone else in their communities, much less a supposed pollster. I think this election will be a landslide in favor of Obama. There is no defending Republicans when one looks at the condition we are in.

I will also vote against every incumbent unless I have personally heard them espouse the values(not religous) that I think are important in order to have us move on as a nation and an economy. We need some rational talk about which industries should demand free market profit and which should have profits regulated to some extent. We need goverment to stop putting profit ahead the social good.

Here's an interesting article from one of the pollsters for Bradley.

Here's an academic study

The Bradley Effect, even if it was true, would have happened in the 1980's. Sorry to say this, but it is 2008, times have changed; this is the first time a black presidential nominee has gone up against a white presidential nominee so at best it's wishful thinking that anything like this will occur because there's no statistics that can back up that it will happen here.

In any event we won't find out if there's any such effect until after the election is over. In my opinion bringing up something that might have happened because of racism, or might have happened because of bad polling 20 years ago isn't enough evidence to say that it's over for Obama.

When Hillary was running for the nom against Obama, she was the favorite. Everyone thought she was a sure thing. Republicans were preparing attack ads for her. But when Iowa happened, Obama walked away with a win. The "Bradley" here was in the end they chose the man over the woman. It was a gender thing.

In New Hampshire, Obama was up in the polls and all looked real good for the young Senator. But after the election it was a reversal as Hillary walked away with the win. The "Bradley" was that people told the pollsters one thing and voted the other way in the booth.

In the presidential race, campaign internal polls from both sides show it to be a dead heat. A 5% Bradley effect will cause a 10% shift and will cause a lot of states, and all of the battleground states to fall into McCains camp.

I also agree that a great many people, especially the youth vote will not go to the polls thinking Obama is a sure thing to win. This is also reinforced by the fact that Obama is already setting up a transition team and the party stadium. The desparate Rupubs and independents on the oother hand will all come out to try to push McCain across the finish line. And we must not forget a great many Hillary voters as well.

Take the Bradley Effect and the fact that pre-election polls have been skewed towards Democrats since 1980 to the tune of 6-8% pts and it adds up to a McCain victory.

I live in a solidly red state, but have had multiple political telephone polls this week. I personally feel no obligation to answer truthfully on such a poll, particularly with the obvious bias that one can tell from the way that questions are worded. On the polls I've answered this week, I answered them as if I was a starry eyed Obama worshiper. To me this is a fine way to sew a little chaos into the system.

Since I live in a solidly Red state I can comfortably vote Libertarian to give the middle finger to both Obama and McCain for pissing away our nations future with their identical votes for the Bankster Bailout Bill.

Originally posted by GeneralLee
I've been deliberating as to whether or not I shouldn't go ahead and vote now.
[edit on 24-10-2008 by GeneralLee]

I'm also debating whether I should vote early or wait for election day. I'm feeling very uncomfortable about mailing my ballot. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Nah.

I disagree with the Bradley effect, he was a completely different personality and these are different times than then, there are many, many things based on race that have just quite simply changed.

I got out of the U.S. Army in 1989 and attended college in Richmond, Virginia, I was thankful to have also attended the inauguration of Douglas Wilder, who would have thought that then it would have been possible in the conservative, republican state that I grew up in would elect a black governor, fast forward 20 years to now.

Just by judging by the high mix of white, black and other ethnicities attending the Obama rallies in mass, bumper stickers, yard signs in white neighborhoods this speaks volumes, I really do not think people that say one thing in a poll and do the other because they don't want to seem racist exists as a gamechanging factor, people are saying what they really feel outwardly and loud nowadays and I think that it may work the other way around.

I heard a report snippet on the radio the other day that an elderly white woman was going to vote for Obama, but she could not let her friends know this, I think there is more of this sort of effect than the Bradley effect, I would go so far to say we will see the Obama effect in a landslide this go around.




[edit on 25-10-2008 by phinubian]

Originally posted by phinubian
I disagree with the Bradley effect, he was a completely different personality and these are different times than then, there are many, many things based on race that have just quite simply changed.

I got out of the U.S. Army in 1989 and attended college in Richmond, Virginia, I was thankful to have also attended the inauguration of Douglas Wilder, who would have thought that then it would have been possible in the conservative, republican state that I grew up in would elect a black governor, fast forward 20 years to now.

Just by judging by the high mix of white, black and other ethnicities attending the Obama rallies in mass, bumper stickers, yard signs in white neighborhoods this speaks volumes, I really do not think people that say one thing in a poll and do the other because they don't want to seem racist exists as a gamechanging factor, people are saying what they really feel outwardly and loud nowadays and I think that it may work the other way around.

I heard a report snippet on the radio the other day that an elderly white woman was going to vote for Obama, but she could not let her friends know this, I think there is more of this sort of effect than the Bradley effect, I would go so far to say we will see the Obama effect in a landslide this go around.

[edit on 25-10-2008 by phinubian]

It's not that whites hate blacks or are racist, it's a matter of having to lie to pollsters who badger them, or admit to friends and family that they like McCain over Obama. They do not want to be preceived or labeled racist, and that is the Bradley effect.

reply to post by Fromabove


I will remember. You better be right.

P.S. Plenty of people talk about the "Bradley Effect". Too many, if you ask me.

How I did my calculations based on the "Bradley Effect."

What I did was to look at all the polls, both national and State. I compared those polls to the last two election cycles. In the previous polls, there was a 2 to 5 percentage point difference going into election day with favorites on the democratic candidate. Given this, I subtracted 2 percentage points from the democratic candidate Obama, and increased 2 percentage points for the Republican candidate McCain. Using both of the internal polls from both campaigns, the total outcome was either a dead heat, or McCain up by 1%.

Next, I split the undecided votes evenly. Then I subtracted 5% for the expected "Bradley Effect" from Obama and added it to McCain. I did not include variables from the Hillary rebellion voters and the "Palin effect". Nor did I consider the youth stay home instead vote that caused much damage to both the Gore and Kerry outcomes.

The final total gives McCain an actual 6% lead over Obama going into the election day. However, I cut half of this total off as a margin of error. where as most polls do a 3 percent + or - , I did a 50%. The end result was a 3% lead for McCain on election day. This should be enough for McCain to win by a total of 290 to 300 electorial votes.

This calculation was very hard work and left out a lot of variables that if added would give McCain an advantage of 7 to 8 percentage points. I only decided to use the "Bradley Effect"

I find it simply amazing that we still talk of riots as a consequence of an election when the same people we've been talking about for years don't get what they want. This, my friends, is the cause of the Bradley effect. It lingers in our collective cultural subconscience and when we go and vote it is triggered into the conscience by the sudden starkness that there is a reality after all, a consequence to our action. All the nice things we philosiphize about vanish and reality comes into focus. Thank goodness for the secret ballot.

reply to post by Fromabove


Tell yourself whatever you want.

However, evoking the 'Bradley Effect' in order to rationalize to yourself that the McCain/Palin ticket still has a chance seems to be an underhanded attempt to paint the majority of Americans as racists. Sure, some may be publicly in the closet in regard to their personal bigotry. Your generalization that enough Americans are closeted bigots to sway the election, and that they have lied to poll takers about their preference all through out the country, time and time again, is offensive and far fetched. You do know that the Americans taking the polls are different people each time, right?

But perhaps before you toss all the polls out here, you should look at a couple of the sites that average/aggregate all the polls to estimate the elections outcome.

Remember, it is 270 electoral votes to win...

Pollster.com currently has 'estimated' Obama with 306 electoral votes, McCain with 157, and 75 toss ups based on the close races in those states.

www.pollster.com...

In most cases, the numbers are not an "average" but rather regression based trendlines. The specific methodology depends on the number of polls available.

If we have at least 8 public polls, we fit a trend line to the dots represented by each poll using a "Loess" iterative locally weighted least squares regression.
If we have between 4 and 7 polls, we fit a linear regression trend line (a straight line) to best fit the points.
If we have 3 polls or fewer, we calculate a simple average of the available surveys..

FiveThirtyEight.com currently has 'estimated' Obama with 348.4 Electoral Votes and McCain with 189.6. They have also estimated Obama has a 94.9% chance to win.
www.fivethirtyeight.com...

There are several principal ways that the FiveThityEight methodology differs from other poll compilations:

Firstly, we assign each poll a weighting based on that pollster's historical track record, the poll's sample size, and the recentness of the poll. More reliable polls are weighted more heavily in our averages.

Secondly, we include a regression estimate based on the demographics in each state among our 'polls', which helps to account for outlier polls and to keep the polling in its proper context.

Thirdly, we use an inferential process to compute a rolling trendline that allows us to adjust results in states that have not been polled recently and make them ‘current’.

Fourthly, we simulate the election 10,000 times for each site update in order to provide a probabilistic assessment of electoral outcomes based on a historical analysis of polling data since 1952. The simulation further accounts for the fact that similar states are likely to move together, e.g. future polling movement in states like Michigan and Ohio, or North and South Carolina, is likely to be in the same direction.

www.270towin.com... has Obama with a 100% chance based on the last 1000 simulations based on recent polling numbers.

Methodology
We take current state-by-state polls and turn the results into probabilities. Each simulation picks a winner in each individual state, based on the probabilities for that state. For example, if McCain has a 55% chance of winning Nevada, he will, in the long run, win Nevada in 55% of the simulations conducted. States that are not polling close (e.g., Utah or Rhode Island) will always yield the same result. As a result, a closer election, with more swing states, will yield a wider range of simulation results than an election with fewer states that are up for grabs. The simulator does not consider the possibility of split electoral votes in Maine or Neb

It is in your best interests to start facing reality.... in the long run you will be happier...

I can see how the Bradley effect can come in to play, especially in the Southern swing states, but aren't there some other factors that may aid Obama?

African Americans are expected to turn out in large numbers, as shown below. Source

Democrats are outvoting the GOP by a margin of 2.5-to-1 in North Carolina, where early voting has been under way for a week. That's roughly double the margin from 2004.

More than 210,000 blacks who are registered as Democrats have cast early ballots in the Tar Heel State — compared with roughly 174,000 registered Republicans overall. Four years ago, the number of GOP early and absentee voters was more than double that of black Democrats.

"It's a sign about how energized African-Americans are about this election," says David Bositis, who tracks black voting trends at the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

In Louisiana, more than 31 percent of the early voters are black, and Democrats are topping Republicans nearly 2-to-1. In the crucial battleground state of Florida, nearly 55 percent of early voters are registered Democrats — well above their 41 percent share of the electorate in the Sunshine State.

Personally, I believe this election is up to the young crowd (18-34), that typically don't vote, but are more liberal in views. If Obama's voter registration drive was successful, I think he'll get the election. I'm pretty sure younger generations also diminish the Bradley effect (if there even is a noticable one), but I guess we'll have to wait and see!

I live in Texas, and we're definitely solid red here. I do event coordinating with a lot of Dallas' social elite, and when you are a wealthy Texan, you're a Conservative. However, when the crowds disburse and people are left with their closest friends, you can hear people voice support for the Democrats.

People may be afraid to say they're voting for McCain because Obama is black in whatever state you guys are from, but at least here in Dallas I've noticed the opposite, especially in big business.

And no, I'm not saying Texas will suddenly vote blue this time around (hah), I'm just saying that there might be two sides to the Bradley coin.

reply to post by Grafilthy


That's interesting!

What if many McCain supporters are so disgusted with their party rather than vote for Obama, or Independent, they don't vote at all?

I don't think I've seen any articles covering that possibility.

reply to post by Areal51


I will be voting for McCain. he was not my choice at all. I don't agree with him on many issues. My vote is an anti-Obama vote. Obama I believe is a very secretive and dangerous Marxist. Many people will vote for McCain because they don't like Obama. McCain will take the election by 52% to 48% for Obama, the Bradley effect being the decider.