Bradley Effect Myth Persists

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Bradley Effect indeed is a myth that never occurred. In 1982 Bradley did lead by double digits...a few weeks before the election. The polls quickly closed in the last few days, and he was up only one point on the last poll. Also Bradley actually won amongst same day voters, he was done in by absentees, and considering how difficult polling absentees is in 1982 it's possible the polls weren't wrong at all. It's the political science version of psuedoscience.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

the bradley effect:

1. now responsible for the statistical margin of error and/or arbitrarily state-specific

2. happens backwards for mexicans

Iowa was outside of the MOE. 

It's almost like that happens 1-in-20 times or something, or there can be other explanations besides the Bradley Effect for people who aren't trying to force data to conform to their hypotheses.

I'm also glad you wouldn't call an overperformance in Hispanic states the Bradley Effect, because that would be completely and ridiculously incoherent.

The most inane thing about this whole theory is that it basically relies on the Bradley Effect being totally random. As in for whatever reason a bunch of voters in Iowa en masse decide to lie to pollsters to not appear racist (racial issues always being rather thought out in Iowa after all), but this doesn't happen in Pennsylvania or Ohio or Indiana. Though of course it supposedly did happen more mildly in Pennsylvania and Ohio just two years earlier with the black Republican candidates but then entirely faded (well not really because it's obvious which way undecideds were breaking in 2006 and even then the cited races weren't really outside the margin of error, but that's beside the point.) So in other words the Bradley Effect just happens, but we can't gauge why or where it happens or consider any other options as to why polls might be wrong (including margin of error.) Does that make sense?

And yeah the Hispanic thing is basically nonsense and probably just a cheap attempt to look "balanced" and not just throwing out the argument as pure GOP hackery.

Something happened in NM, NV, and even AZ.  Obama ran ahead of polling.  I wouldn't call it a Bradley Effect.  People lying to pollsters is a possible reason. 

Or perhaps pollsters have more difficulty interviewing ESL Hispanics in those states, which would be largely Democratic?

Actually nothing all that odd happened. J. J. is as usual cherry-picking results and doing it badly. In New Mexico (which is always notoriously difficult to poll), the polls had an average of him with 55%, and he got a little under 57%. In Arizona Obama got a little under 45%, and the last polling average had him at 46% (and of course why undecideds might break for McCain in Arizona is a little obvious). Nevada's the only one where the polls were off by a significant margin, where Obama averaged 50% and he got over 55%. However the last poll average also showed 6% undecided, and with the swing Nevada took and the economic conditions of the state it's not too hard to simply seeing the undecideds breaking heavily, and with the dynamics of the state using a turnout model based off 2004 in 2008 would be somewhat inaccurate. I'm oversimplifying quite a bit obviously, but these are far more logical explanations than "The Bradley Effect causes black candidates to underpoll in states with lots of Hispanics."

Also look at Texas where Obama polled at 41% with 5% undecided and got 43.6% (aka the undecideds broke almost 50/50) and California where he polled at 59% and got a little under 61% (with 3% undecided.) So this "inverse Bradley Effect" thing with Hispanics basically requires the same total random occurrence to be believed in.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This is a long-running thing on this forum. For those that aren't aware of the main issue at hand, J. J. is not psychologically capable of admitting that he's wrong.

Obvious to any long time poster. The problem though is that he has a way of wording his posts of distortions, falsehoods and half-truths (more like quarter-truths really) in a competent sounding way, meaning some casual observers might be drawn in (sort of the thing TJ touched on.) Hence why I still make sure to debunk them. Even in this thread we saw someone take his word for it that Obama consistently underpolled in states with large Hispanic populations.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Actually nothing all that odd happened. J. J. is as usual cherry-picking results and doing it badly. In New Mexico (which is always notoriously difficult to poll), the polls had an average of him with 55%, and he got a little under 57%. In Arizona Obama got a little under 45%, and the last polling average had him at 46% (and of course why undecideds might break for McCain in Arizona is a little obvious). Nevada's the only one where the polls were off by a significant margin, where Obama averaged 50% and he got over 55%. However the last poll average also showed 6% undecided, and with the swing Nevada took and the economic conditions of the state it's not too hard to simply seeing the undecideds breaking heavily, and with the dynamics of the state using a turnout model based off 2004 in 2008 would be somewhat inaccurate. I'm oversimplifying quite a bit obviously, but these are far more logical explanations than "The Bradley Effect causes black candidates to underpoll in states with lots of Hispanics."

Also look at Texas where Obama polled at 41% with 5% undecided and got 43.6% (aka the undecideds broke almost 50/50) and California where he polled at 59% and got a little under 61% (with 3% undecided.) So this "inverse Bradley Effect" thing with Hispanics basically requires the same total random occurrence to be believed in.

Do you attribute Reid and Bennet overperforming their polls to a similar sweeping of the undecided vote? In any case, Reid and Bennet aren't black.

It's possible, or that the pollsters messed up the turnout there (actually Reid's a great example being in Nevada as well.) But yeah it shows that polls can be off for both black and non-black candidates, and the same factors that make them off for non-blacks can also apply for black candidates. J. J.'s biggest fallacy is simply defaulting to using the Bradley Effect to explain all polling discrepancies when a black candidate is involved.