November 12, 2008
Why Did the Bradley Effect Myth Persist?
by Craig Charney
Should we still be talking about the Bradley Effect? In the wake of Barack Obama’s victory last week, we've already read its obituary.
But it's worth pouring a little more dirt on its grave and then burying it once and for all, because the idea of this phenomenon was used to pillory the United States with phony charges of racism long after they ceased to be true.
Lots of people who should’ve known better had motives to insist the Bradley Effect was alive and well. Some were liberals who had convinced themselves of the inevitability of white bias, while others were Hillary Clinton supporters eager to show that her black rival couldn't win. They were gladly echoed by anti-American voices abroad, cynical or ignorant about progress toward racial justice in this country.
They all should have known they were wrong — but they kept at it.
Twenty years ago, the Bradley Effect worked like this: the share of the vote for white candidates running against blacks would rise between election-eve polls and the election results. This was seen as evidence that many white people who were going to vote for the white candidate wouldn't say so beforehand.
That didn't happen this year. I compared the results of 60 election-eve polls in seven swing states to the election returns from those states.
On Election Day, John McCain’s share of a state's vote was larger than his pre-election tally in 25 of the polls, but Obama's vote share had risen in 26 cases. There was no change in vote shares in nine.
But we didn't have to wait for this year’s general election to prove it.
The evidence from the primaries was clear: no Bradley Effect.
The evidence from years of gubernatorial and senate elections was clear: no Bradley Effect. In 2006, polls accurately forecast the vote for black candidates like Harold Ford, defeated for senator in Tennessee, and Deval Patrick, elected Massachusetts governor.
Indeed, some experts say the evidence from Tom Bradley’s 1982 defeat itself cast doubt on whether race or other factors explained the polls' inaccuracy then.
Never mind reality. For two decades many, here and abroad, insisted that despite America's seeming progress on race, white Americans still were too bigoted to vote for blacks or even admit they wouldn't.
Why? Perhaps that’s what the observers’ own prejudice about “some voters” made them believe.
Chris Matthews of “Hardball” proclaimed that a black candidate had to be up by eight points in pre-election polls to run even with a white at the polls. Susan Estrich claimed to be “worried” that the Bradley Effect might hurt Obama. (Coincidentally, she had authored “The Case for Hillary Clinton.”) Just last month, CNN’s Jason Carroll guessed that Obama might be undone by the Bradley effect.
Voices like these carried across the pond. London’s Guardian asked whether racism cost Obama January’s New Hampshire primary. In October, Spain’s Antena 3 TV news announced that “Obama fears the Bradley effect.” Le Monde, France’s leading daily, jumped on the bandwagon a week before the vote, declaring that “well-informed observers warn about the Bradley Effect.”
The 2008 election proved all those claims are now myths.
Had the Bradley Effect worked, Obama’s Election Day margins would have been consistently smaller than those in the polls. While this was true in 21 states, Obama’s vote bested his poll scores in 20 other states. (Elsewhere, the polls matched the vote.)
Sure, race and voting remain connected. Obama took just 43% of white votes according to national exit polls, McCain 55%.
But the same polls show that the candidate’s race has faded as an influence on white voters’ choice. In 2008, the black presidential candidate's share of white votes exceeded both John Kerry’s in 2004 and Al Gore’s in 2000. Obama’s problem attracting white voters was not that he is black — it's that he is a Democrat.
So eat your hearts out, self-hating liberals and anti-Americans overseas. Your beloved Bradley Effect is history. Ancient history.
Craig Charney is president of Charney Research, a New York polling firm. He was Senior Analyst on President Clinton’s 1996 re-election polling team.
< Return to CHARNEY RESEARCH STAFF PUBLICATIONS >