Reverse Bradley Effect?

Posted by Ashish on 10.09.2008

Study shows that Obama got a boost from a reverse Bradley effect in the primaries...

We've known this for awhile, but researchers at the University of Washington have a new report out indicating that if anything, Obama got a boost from a reverse Bradley effect during the primaries because he overperformed polls in every single state except California, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. In 12 states, Obama overperformed polls by 7% or more. One of the main reasons? Many white people did not want to admit that they were voting for an African American or, particularly in very Republican states, the Democrat, but ended up doing so anyway.

Greenwald and Albertson found that the Bradley effect only showed up in three states – California, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

However, they found a reverse Bradley effect in 12 primary states. In these states they found actual support for Obama exceeded pre-election polls by totals of 7 percent or more, well beyond the polls' margins of error. These errors ranged up to 18 percent in Georgia.

"The Bradley effect has mutated. We are seeing it in several states, but the reverse effect is much stronger," said Greenwald. "We didn't have a chance to look at these effects before on a national level. The prolonged Democratic primary process this year gave us a chance to look for this effect in 32 primaries in which the same two candidates faced each other."

Albertson and Greenwald believe the errors in the polls are being driven by social pressures that can operate when voters are contacted by telephone prior to an election. They said that polls from states in the Southeast predicted a large black vote for Obama and a much weaker white vote. They found that, in a few Southeast states, exit polls showed that both whites and blacks gave more votes to Obama than the pre-election polls had predicted.

"Blacks understated their support for Obama and, even more surprising, whites did too. There also is some indication that this happened in such Republican states as Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri and Indiana," Greenwald said.

Their conclusion is that current polling could be underestimating Obama's support by as much as 4%.

For those who don't know what the Bradley effect is, here's a quick explanation. Over the past few decades, there have been a few elections on the state and local levels where African Americans ended up getting much less of the vote than polls indicated. The reason was because many white people did not want to admit to pollsters that they planned to vote against the black candidate, but then when the time came to vote, they did. So polls overestimated support for these black candidates. What we saw in the primaries though is a reverse Bradley effect where, it seems, many white people said they wouldn't vote for Obama but ended up doing so, as did African Americans, many of whom told pollsters they wouldn't vote for Obama but in the end did. This effect was particularly significant in Southern and Republican states. Why? Simple. Many whites in the South live in areas where publicly supporting a black candidate would result in some social backlash due to the fact that racism is still alive and well in parts in that region. It seems as if many of these people thus would publicly state that they weren't supporting Obama, but ended up voting for him anyway. The same thing happened in many traditional Republican states where, again, in certain areas, being Republican is assumed, and people who live in these neighborhoods publicly don't announce support for anyone but the Republican, whether they actually plan to vote for the Republican or not. That is why Obama overperformed so much with white voters in so many of these states during the primaries.

"If you call people on the phone today and ask who they will vote for, some will give responses influenced by what may be understood, locally, as the more desirable response. It is easy to suppose that these people are lying to pollsters. I don't believe that. What I think is they may be undecided and experiencing social pressure which could increase their likelihood of naming the white candidate if their region or state has a history of white dominance. They also might give the name of the Republican if the state is strongly Republican.

A good analogy of a desirable response and social pressure, he said, would be if you lived in Detroit and you get a call asking if you will participate in an anonymous survey about automobiles.

"You agree and are asked if you prefer American or foreign cars. Even if you own a Japanese car, you might experience some pressure to give an answer that might be more appreciated by the caller – that you prefer American cars," said Greenwald. "When it comes to politics, although voters are presumably anonymous when speaking to pollsters, the fact that the person calling them knows their phone number may not let them feel anonymous."

Albertson noted that the polls have systematically underestimated Obama's support and this can have an impact on the election.

This is one of those things that will make election day very interesting.