The Death Of The Bradley Effect
By Doug Mataconis | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, McCainIf nothing else, the election of Barack Obama should mean the end of the so-called “Bradley effect:”
All the ominous predictions, all the fretting about hidden votes and closeted racists frustrating a victory for the nation’s first African-American president came down to this: the so-called Bradley effect did not exist.
People did not lie — to pollsters or to themselves — about whether they would vote for a black man. The polls, national and statewide, generally predicted the results with accuracy.
“The unambiguous answer is that there was no Bradley effect,” said Mark Blumenthal, the editor and publisher of Pollster.com, a Web site that publishes and analyzes poll results.
So let there be no more talk of the Bradley effect.
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, McCain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:14 am
This result was rather predictable. Many of the “closet racists” which are the targets of the Bradley Effect analysis can easily find other (read: non-racist) ways to justify supporting McCain over Obama. McCain did have some benefits to his positions, after all.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:27 am
The Bradley effect was a myth to begin with. That doesn’t mean there isn’t racism, but the polls we never skewed because of it. I’m glad this puts it to rest, either way.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:49 am
I believe that we may, in fact, have witnessed a sort of reverse “Bradley Effect” wherein people simply did not own up in advance to the fact that they had intentions of voting for Obama. In the privacy of the voting booth, they later did what their hearts told them to although they might never admit it.