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

[Sam Spade]

I'm going to post something lengthy on this tomorrow. 

[Sam Spade]

If JJ is right, and it's only 1% that remains Bradley, we'll never know, because there are dozens of distinct things that can cause a poll to differ with the actual voting results.

The big issue is that even if it's 1%, it is likely to be overconcentrated in certain states, as opposed to others.  My gut says that those areas are likely to be *white flight* areas with decent Democratic white sub-groups, particularly lower-income.  Additionally, as you mentioned, the lack of any study as to whether these issues seep into early exit poll data is another question without answers - we can only give *primary* examples.  Besides, early exit poll data still sucks, for plenty of other reasons.

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Of course.  Actually, that's where it's probably always had impact, considering that in the 1980s, early 1990s, state polling was not common, people were less polarized, and pollsters typically didn't push leaners as much.

[Sam Spade]

Are there modern white flight-states that are the equivalent of a white-flight suburb?  Northern Virginia to get out of Baltimore/DC?  If you don't want your kids to go to a poor school with minorities, you don't usually fly to Ohio, do you?  Honest curious question.

I don't get the point you're making.  I only think of white flight suburbs/areas, not states, mainly because the latter doesn't occur.  True, there aren't any blacks in New Hampshire, but most of the SE suburbs were built out of white flight from Boston (not to mention running from high taxes).  Most of the white flight in Baltimore did not get to Northern VA, as anyone who lived in Baltimore should know.

[Sam Spade]

But what I meant was that this is mostly inter-state migration, right?  How are they more concentrated in one swing state over another?  Just the states within that "magic Obama death range" of African-American population ~9%-16% during the primaries? Obama won the whitest (except NH, SD) and the blackest states easily, as we know.

But a lot of the areas where we have recently tested the Bradley Effect to find no convincing result have been in these types of states: Swan in PA, Patrick in MA, Ford in TN, and Blackwell in Ohio.

Except there was with Patrick and Blackwell (about 4%-5%).  Not to mention Steele (5% too).  (I agree on Swann and Ford, btw).  If his data says otherwise, it's bad data and improper analysis.

This is especially important with Patrick, because a wave year like 2006 usually results in the *waved-in* party underpolling a bit to begin with.

[Sam Spade]

I'm always hesitant to include Steele for analyzing Obama, because I suspect that the Bradley effect might be more pronounced among Republicans.  Not because they are more racist, but they are more unused to minority leadership.

But yeah, that's the recent data.

What's the recent data?  Other than what I posted.

Also, you can't just take certain politicians out of the analysis - and your presupposition that the Bradley effect is more pronounced among Republicans has no real factual basis.

Moreover, with regards to Steele, and having lived in Baltimore for a while, my first question to you would be, "Where are these Republicans in Maryland you speak of?"

[Sam Spade]

PART I - The 2006 Elections

The article is interesting.  However, my own personal opinion, at least based on the numbers that I've researched, is that the only states that had "Bradley/Wilder effects" were states with significant *white flight* populations, where the white flight populations had a large number of:

1) liberal Democrats/Republicans (of the more moderate socially Republicans, in other words "swingable" Republicans) and/or
2)working-class Democrats (i.e. the "Reagan" Democrats). 

I suspect that, if we look at the numbers more closely, since the passage of "welfare reform", we've eliminated most of the "Bradley/Wilder effect" of the first category, but probably much less of the second.

In 2006, we had 5 black candidates that ran, as I recall.  Now, the Democratic wave will occasionally cause strange movements, but here's what I see if I use the last 5 legitimate independent polls of each race.  I am also ignoring the Columbus Dispatch poll because it was equally 12 points too Democratic in both the Ohio Senate and Governor race.  Even with that result included, the Ohio results were still about 2 points too Republican compared to final numbers:

MD Sen (R candidate):  Polling D+4.40; Actual D+10.01 (-5.61)
TN Sen (D candidate):  Polling R+5.00; Actual R+2.70 (+2.30)
MA Gov (D candidate - only 4 legitimate polls):  Polling D+24.25; Actual D+20.34 (-3.91)
OH Gov (R candidate):  Polling D+19.20; Actual D+23.89 (-4.69)
PA Gov (R candidate):  Polling D+21.40; Actual D+20.71 (+0.71)

Historically, in wave elections, or even mini-wave elections, the "waved-in" party underpolls by about a couple of percent generically (that has to do with undecideds breaking a certain way), which should translate on this scale to mean there was no real "effect" in TN Sen; the effect was less in MD Sen and OH Gov is less than indicated above; and the effect was greater in MA Gov than indicated above.

It would also mean that Swann underpolled more in PA Gov than the numbers indicate (probably about 3%).  What does this mean?  Could mean that there's no "effect" in PA (contrary to what Rendell said).  Or it could mean that there's a difference in the way black candidates perform vis-a-vis the polling in *open* elections, as opposed to elections against incumbents.  After all, neither Bradley in 1982, Wilder or Dinkins in 1989 ran against incumbents, they all ran in open races.

Next:  PART II - The 2008 Primary (see next post - might not be until Sunday...)

[Sam Spade]

one last bump?

Waiting for Sam's second post still.

Haven't got around to it.