Paper Finds that Bradley/Wilder Effect Has Disappeared With Crime/Poverty issues

[Nym90]

random musing: I wonder if there are more ex-Hillary supporters that lie about their vote (or being undecided) right now but will end up voting for Obama than Bradleyeffecters.

But wait, I thought the Hillary voters were supposed to be the Bradley effecters?

[Lunar]

Not all of them are racist

Like I said, the Hillary supporters and long primary are one possible mitigating effect as well.  Racist voters no longer have to lie and can openly vote Republican for the first time in ages because of how sexist and elitist and inexperienced Obama is.

[So the Heroes Fall]

The Muslim thing also gives racist voters a cover, since refusing to vote for a Muslim is more socially acceptable than refusing to vote for a black. Though of course anyone saying Obama is a Muslim just looks like an idiot.

[Lunar]

Well, you don't state why you're voting for who you're voting for (at least not right away, after they've already asked the categorical president question), it's more about what you're telling yourself.  I'm not sure if racist Democrats had an easy opt-out for themselves for Wilder/Bradley to make them different from all of the white Democrats they had vote for prior.

[J. J.]

The Muslim thing also gives racist voters a cover, since refusing to vote for a Muslim is more socially acceptable than refusing to vote for a black. Though of course anyone saying Obama is a Muslim just looks like an idiot.

I actually think the Muslim claim is worse, politically.  It doesn't give anyone "cover," but probably has a few people that would vote for a black guy saying, "He's Muslim, I won't vote for him."

[So the Heroes Fall]

Except no one with a functioning brain actually believes Obama is Muslim.

[J. J.]

Except no one with a functioning brain actually believes Obama is Muslim.

I'll bet that gap between the two candidates is less than 12%. 

Did you ever hear of Kenny Gamble?

He's black, pioneered The Sound of Philadelphia asd record producer, a successful entrepreneur, responsible for the redevelopment of parts of South Philadelphia.  He'd make a great elected official; I'd vote for him.  He happens to be with a very tolerant and traditional branch of Islam.

I mention him to my black Christian landlord and the response I usually get, "Yeah, but he's Muslim."

[The Vorlon]

http://people.iq.harvard.edu/~dhopkins/wilder13.pdf

Marc Ambinder's summary:
Hopkins looked at all senatorial and gubernatorial races that featured a woman or an African-American candidate from 1989 to 2006 -- a total of 133 races. For each, he found at least one poll released within a month of Election Day, enabling him to measure the gap between a candidate's polling and performance.

Hopkins finds some evidence that African-American candidates suffered from something resembling a Wilder effect before 1996, but since then, the effect seems to have disappeared.

This becomes the key finding of Hopkins's study: The Wilder effect is not a durable phenomenon. Rather, it is dependent on particular political conditions.

His theory is that when racially charged issues like welfare and crime dominated the political rhetoric, racial factors affected voting behavior and the Wilder effect asserted itself. But once welfare disappeared as a salient issue in 1996, political discourse was deracialized and race was less of a factor in voters' mind.

Hopkins finds that the salience of racial factors depends on the tone of the national environment, not on the tone of local candidates. He explains that black candidates before 1996 were victim of the Wilder effect whether or not they ran a deracialized campaign; after 1996, white candidates were not able to benefit from that effect even when they attempted to exploit racially charged issues. This also applies to the Democratic primaries of 2008, where Hopkins finds that there was no Wilder effect affecting Obama's performance.

To preempt possible concerns about his study's validity, Hopkins takes a look at alternative explanations for the polling-performance gap. First, he considered whether the Wilder effect only affects African-American candidates or whether it hurts other under-represented groups. Analyzing races that featured a female candidate, he finds that women do not suffer from any Wilder effect - quite the contrary, female candidates on average perform better than their polling indicated.

Second, Hopkins considers the possibility that the polling-performance gap can be attributed to what he calls the "front-runner's fall." Hopkins explains that front-runners' support can be overstated because of their higher name recognition and because of classical regression to the mean, making it necessary to account for such an effect before determining what impact racial bias in Wilder or Dinkins' decline. After running additional tests, Hopkins determines that some of the polling-performance gap can be attributed to a front-runners' fall, but that the Wilder effect is still at play.

In other words, the Wilder effect tends to increase in function of an African-American candidate's initial support. Hopkins argues that this leads to the hype that surrounds the Wilder effect. The candidates that are most associated to that effect - Wilder, Dinkins and Bradley - were all favored to win. That is what got their campaigns so much coverage in the first place and it made their performance gap that much more dramatic - creating a somewhat naïve buzz around the Wilder effect.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/has_the_wilder_effect_disappea.php

Lunar, I must say that consistently you start interesting threads back up by real actual interesting facts...

You are an awesome asset to this board

[Lunar]

awww shucks

[Lunar]

Vo-dawg, any comments though on the research itself?  I find it moderately persuasive and it's the first piece of academic work I've seen to cite http://uselectionatlas.org.

[Gustaf]

Vo-dawg, any comments though on the research itself?  I find it moderately persuasive and it's the first piece of academic work I've seen to cite http://uselectionatlas.org.

That alone gives it a ton of credibility.

[Lunar]

Vo-dawg, any comments though on the research itself?  I find it moderately persuasive and it's the first piece of academic work I've seen to cite http://uselectionatlas.org.

That alone gives it a ton of credibility.

I'd say so!

[Lunar]

one last bump?

Waiting for Sam's second post still.

[Sam Spade]

one last bump?

Waiting for Sam's second post still.

Haven't got around to it.

[J. J.]

Having read it, finally, I think that yes, there are some problems.

1.  Mixing female and black candidates.  I know of no claim that women overpoll.  (I don't think he did it statistically.)

2.  Many of his example are from legislative races, sub state constituencies.  I only know of one claim, Dinkins.

3.  I don't buy the entire claim "over-estimation of front-runners' support."  I've seen too many landslides that were predicted, such as Casey (PA-Sen) 2006, where he underpolled slightly.

I basically would argue that it did occur in 2006 with Patrick (Gov-MA), Steele (Sen-MA)  strongly, Blackwell (Gov-OH), weakly, Swann (Gov-PA), very weakly or not at all, and Ford (Sen-TN) not at all.  If we only had Patrick and Steele in 2006, I'd say Obama has already lost.

I expect to be present, but not a large factor.  I would not be stunned if Obama cosistently underpolled by 1 point, but I would be if he underpolled by 3-5 points.

[Lunar]

Underpolled?  You mean overpolled?  Underpolled would indicate that the polls undestimated your support.

Anyway, would you be surprised if the reverse happened and Obama did 1% better than the polls predicted?  Because that's the sort of fluidity that happens in every election (the polls are never 100% right unless by freakish accident).

[J. J.]

Underpolled?  You mean overpolled?  Underpolled would indicate that the polls undestimated your support.

Underpolled.  Casey did better than the polling indicated.  3-13 points.

Anyway, would you be surprised if the reverse happened and Obama did 1% better than the polls predicted?  Because that's the sort of fluidity that happens in every election (the polls are never 100% right unless by freakish accident).

Not in fifty state polls and a number of national ones.  I'm sure you could find a state poll or even a national one where Obama will do better.  I expect it to be seen in most polling, but not a lot.

[Lunar]

I expect to be present, but not a large factor.  I would not be stunned if Obama cosistently underpolled by 1 point, but I would be if he underpolled by 3-5 points.

[J. J.]

I expect to be present, but not a large factor.  I would not be stunned if Obama cosistently underpolled by 1 point, but I would be if he underpolled by 3-5 points.

On that overpolled.

[Lunar]

Ok, not being a nazi, just wanted to make sure we were using the same terminology.

Anyway, I think racism in the undecideds is just one piece of the overall gigantic fabric that masks the "true" results from the poll (including statistical noise, methodological problems, oversampling, undersampling, ground game, cell-phone only voters, lying to pollster on both sides from Bradley-effecters to bitter Hillary voters that will still pull the lever for Obama).  If racism is going to be as indecisive as you predict, we'll never know.  I mean, there are so many hundreds of reasons undecideds can break for one candidate or the other, and I think personality and policies are significantly higher determinants than race, but we just won't know if it's only 1%.

[J. J.]

Ok, not being a nazi, just wanted to make sure we were using the same terminology.

Anyway, I think racism in the undecideds is just one piece of the overall gigantic fabric that masks the "true" results from the poll (including statistical noise, methodological problems, oversampling, undersampling, ground game, cell-phone only voters, lying to pollster on both sides from Bradley-effecters to bitter Hillary voters that will still pull the lever for Obama).  If racism is going to be as indecisive as you predict, we'll never know.  I mean, there are so many hundreds of reasons undecideds can break for one candidate or the other, and I think personality and policies are significantly higher determinants than race, but we just won't know if it's only 1%.

Cell phone only users is not a separate demographic.  There has never been a solidly documented reverse Bradley Effect.  PUMA's are relatively vocal.

The Bradley Effect is that people are lie to pollsters.  I expect it to be low and am figuring that way; after looking at Steele and Patrick, I might be figuring too low, but I'll still guess less than one point.  That is a tie breaker, but that's it.

[Lunar]

No need to lecture me on cell-phone users, it's obviously a laundry list of things that can go wrong with a poll.

That's actually only one theory behind the Bradley Effect.  If you count all the people who are really decided for McCain and instead tell the pollster that they are undecided or voting Obama, that might equal 1% states in Pennsylvania or possibly even more.  I think it's pretty ridiculous, biased, and arbitrary to give a flat 0.5-1% automatically for McCain off of the official poll results though.

Because, even if you are right and this many people lie, combined with racist undecideds, resulting let's say 1-2% breaking for McCain, you are still assuming:
a) The poll is 100% accurate statistically
b) The poll has 0% problems methodologically, including oversampling and undersampling
c) No one else is lying about not supporting Obama when they really do
d) Both candidates have completely equal ground game

I don't think any of those things are true.  I know in Pennsylvania, ground games tend to neutralize one another, but an extra 1% this way or the other wouldn't be unheard of.  Not to mention polling accuracy in many other respects. 

To isolate out just the Bradley effect in order to give a boost to your candidate is misleading.

Why do you assume Obama is more like Steele and Patrick and less like Ford?  It seems Obama has higher amounts of information-saturation, meaning less people feel the need to lie, combined with the fact that Steele and Patrick were both Republicans, further differentiating themselves...

[J. J.]

I don't look at just one poll, but a lot of them and try to get a sense of what is happening; when I look at them, I'll make a slight correction and use those numbers.

[Lunar]

Ok, because your last two PA predictions have both been +0.5% whatever poll favors McCain the most of the past week: favoring McCain slightly when a single tied poll appeared (a Rasmussen back a week or so ago, even though others showed it not as tight) and now giving Obama 1.5% (when M-D gave Obama a 2% lead - even though the Rasmussen showed it 3%).  It seemed kind of formulaic and based off one poll + 0.5% Bradley effect.  I understand you're going off trends and so on, but if there's three-four quality polls, most likely the one showing it the tightest is a tick or two off.  The Bradley effect, as you depict it, I think it's reasonable to say, is dwarfed by the statistical errors, methodological errors, and ground game all throwing themselves into the tapestry.  Call it however you want, but I think it'd be silly/arbitrary for me to say Obama gets an extra +1% because he's invested way more money into organizing North Carolina, although that is absolutely a real possibility.  We'll have to see

McCain is certainly making Pennsylvania his #1 target in spending and he thinks he has a lot of room to grow there, so your predictions aren't loony, just they didn't seem holistic.  But it's not as if I know every thought in your head haha.

[J. J.]

  The Bradley effect, as you depict it, I think it's reasonable to say, is dwarfed by the statistical errors, methodological errors, and ground game all throwing themselves into the tapestry.  Call it however you want, but I think it'd be silly/arbitrary for me to say Obama gets an extra +1% because he's invested way more money into organizing North Carolina, although that is absolutely a real possibility.  We'll have to see

Close, but basically I look at a number of polls.  That week we had two, one fairly good, one not fairly good, but both saying the same thing.  Had we seen polling this week that still grouped around that tie, I would have, in making my prediction, pushed this into the McCain column, because I think something causing Obama to slightly overpoll.  That didn't happen, so I moved it to Obama.  Unless I see some very strong movement to McCain nationally, over the next two days, or some polls showing a reversing of the trend in PA, I won't change that.  I don't expect to see either (but I didn't last week's ties either).

McCain is certainly making Pennsylvania his #1 target in spending and he thinks he has a lot of room to grow there, so your predictions aren't loony, just they didn't seem holistic.  But it's not as if I know every thought in your head haha.

He may not,  He may be using a hold strategy, which could be successful.