Talk:Bradley effect/Archive 1

Are the Bobby Jindal results part of the Bradley effect?
I really do not think his loss was because of this. It was a close race and the polling numbers showed a close race. People CLAIM that it was the Bradley effect, but i think we need some verification to prove that it was an example before including it in this article. DanielZimmerman 19:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding more to this, according to capitol watch, the polling data on November 4th, 2003 had a statistical tie...(Based on his nightly polling data, Kennedy projected the race would be 50.4 percent for Blanco and 49.6 percent for Jindal, which is a statistical tie. ) The election results where 52%-48%, which should be well within the margin of error. Because of this, I think I will need to "be bold" and remove the Jindal portion of this article which is plainly untrue. DanielZimmerman 21:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Can't argue with hard data like that. You might want to hit the Bobby Jindal article up with that data as well.  Mwelch 21:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Effect with gay politicians?
Going into the Dallas Mayor's race, Ed Oakley, an openly gay politician was headed into the race with a slight 1-2 point advantage and had been gaining in recent polls. However, when the election actually happened, straight candidate Tom Leppert won by approximately 15 points.


 * Interesting. What has the media in Dallas been saying with regard to reasons or theories as to the cause of the discrepancy?  I just did a very quick article check and didn't see any articles that discussed that particular issue.  I saw some that indeed ID'd the race as "too close to call" coming down to the wire.  But none afterward that made note that the final margin was skewed from the polls' predictions.  I don't have time to dig very deep right now, though, so there might well have been some such articles that I just missed.  Mwelch 06:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I looked again a bit more carefully and interestingly enough, I still see no articles at all that even mention the fact that the final result was way off from the poll numbers, much less analyze possible reasons why that was the case. One that I did find, though, noted that its margin of error in its poll of likely voters (which showed Leppert up 47-45) was unusually high (almost six percent) because of low confidence in their determination of which voters were actually likely to turn out.


 * Since, at this point, it seems no reliable sources are raising the issue of whether something like the Bradley effect occurred, I don't think there is a basis right now to include it in the article. Mwelch 22:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Should we include examples where people claim the bradley effect when such a claim is false?
One example is the section about Bobby Jindal. Above we discussed the fact that even though some people claimed that Jindal's 2003 loss was an example of the Bradley Effect, that the actual data shows a statistical tie going into the election and such claims would not be valid. I would argue that it is unencyclopedic to reference things that people claim are examples of the Bradley effect and then point out how they are wrong. I would "be bold" and delete it. However, I wanted to get some opinions first. DanielZimmerman 18:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd argue that since it's subjective, by nature, whether the Bradley effect is the cause in any given election, that it would be difficult to set a valid standard for what constitutes proof the claim is false. I'd argue the prominence of the argument would be a better standard for inclusion.  Then include any counter-argument and let the reader decide for themselves based on that data.  That's what I tried to do in the Jindal section.  Barnes is a very prominent political commentator, not just some Joe Blow with a blog, so that's why I felt it merited inclusion.
 * If you go with a standard of "don't include it if those, who said it were wrong" where do you draw the line in determining that they were wrong? I'll admit that in Barnes's case, maybe it would be pretty tough to argue against the counter evidence.  But what about Gantt and Bruan in the 90's?  Does the counter-evidence in those cases mean that those who talk of the effect in those cases are definitely wrong, and thus they should be deleted?  Seems like kind of a gray area to me.  Mwelch (talk) 05:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The Prop 15 Effect
In the 1982 election between Deukmajian and Bradley, Proposition 15, a gun control law, was on the same ballot. This brought out a lot of conservative voters who were not big supporters of Deukmajian, but as long as they were in the voting booth they voted for him. I'm not saying there wasn't also a racial element, but this article is incomplete if it leaves that out.  Randall Bart    Talk   20:52, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You could write an article on the "Prop 15 Effect" and then link it to this one with a "see other". Steve Dufour (talk) 14:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Or you could mention it as a possible alternative explanation.193.129.64.154 (talk) 11:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * For the sake of brevity, I didn't go into details of every possible explanation for that one specific race, but I have now added a statement mentioning that there were alternate explanations offered in the Bradley/Deukmejian race. The specific explanations (including the gun control iniative) are found in the source that I provided for the statement.  Mwelch (talk) 05:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Feedback on quality of writing
During a 2007 peer review for this article, Mwelch asked for comments on the quality of the writing. An outside opinion was voiced earlier this week, when the article's first paragraph was quoted in full by Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic Monthly (see ). Well done, and thanks. Novickas (talk) 15:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Could there be a reverse Bradley effect?
Polls are saying that Senator Clinton is more popular among black voters than Senator Obama. I guess we will have to wait and see. Steve Dufour 05:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The most recent polls indicate a change in that trend. A Washington Post poll of black Democratic voters showed Obama 44 - Clinton 33.  In january that stood at Clinton 60 - Obama 20.  No one knows why that is but it's widely believed to be just because of increased name recognition due to his announcement.   Mykll42 17:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe people had to wait a while to give themselves permission to like him. Steve Dufour 12:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * So far I have heard that Senator Obama is falling behind Senator Clinton in the polls of black voters. I have a feeling that some people are answering that they like Hillary because they want to seem serious, thoughtful, fair-minded, and so forth.  But when they get alone in the voting booth the chance to vote for the first black president might seem more important. Steve Dufour 06:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Obama's slightly different in that, while black, he is not African-American i.e. the descendant of slaves. He has a different background and a different history, and therefore blacks won't automatically support him, especially when up against the historic popularity of the Clintons. In this primary blacks will be a real wild card and, for once, their support cannot be taken for granted. 193.129.64.154 (talk) 11:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I think there used to be discussion of a "reverse Bradley Effect" in this article but it seems to have disappeared." All that remains is an (incorrect) reverence to the Dinkins/Guliani race for New York Mayor in 1989 (Dinkins won so that would be a "reverse Bradley").  Actually, I find it a bit "interesting" how this article has changed over the past month.  Seems to have gotten rid of the "Reverse Bradley" and looks to have a bit of an Obama Campaign POV.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.162.143.161 (talk) 05:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Firstly, there was never any reverse Bradley info in the article prior to today. There wasn't any in reliable sources to cite (to my knowledge, any way).  I found something citable recently, so I've now put it in.  Secondly, the information about the '89 Dinkins/Giuliani race is accurate.  It isn't about who wins; it's about the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the polls.  The polls said Dinkins would beat Giuliani handily, but it wound up being a squeaker.  That's clearly not reverse.  Mwelch (talk) 06:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Yahoo search for "reverse Bradley effect". 2,780 hits, mostly seem to be from the last couple of months. Borock (talk) 20:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Information removed
I removed the following as "other instances mentioned" because no detail whatsoever was provided, nor does the article on Brown himself provide any detail about polling versus actual results:


 * former Houston Police chief Lee P. Brown (first African American police chief in the City of Houston appointed by Mayor Kathy Whitmire) ran successfully in late 1997.

I welcome this information being added back to the article once more (relevant) details, including their source, are also added to the article. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Another possible example: Giuliani Dinkins 1993
Pollster Frank Luntz said something interesting that could be added to the article, but I failed to verify it but perhaps another editor can nail down a source. Luntz reported that the first David Dinkins - Rudy Giuliani matchup in 1989 New York City mayoralty elections Dinkins had a 10 point lead in the pre-election polls but actually only won by a narrow margin -- 48.3% to 45.8%. That's in the article. He added that in second election in 1993 where Giuliani won 49.2% to 46.4% -- the exit polls indicated that Dinkins won -- concluding that voters had lied to the exit polltakers. That's not in the article. patsw (talk) 01:01, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Racism
It was pointed out to me by a causal reader of Wikipedia that including pictures of only the black candidates and not their white opponents in this article is vaguely racist. Please consider modifying the image selection. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you elaborate on how it is racist, rather than just throwing these claims around willy-nilly?  Plasticup  T / C  15:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

civil rights activists
I deleted a couple of statements from the article to the effect that the Bradley effect only applied to civil rights activists. They were poorly written, unsourced, and unencyclopedic in tone. I also didn't think they made much sense. Bradley himself wasn't a civil rights activist, he was a cop.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 00:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio
Parts of the article have been copied from http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/01/the_bradley_eff.html (see this diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bradley_effect&diff=prev&oldid=242589874). -- Mvuijlst (talk) 12:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Never mind, blockquoted the text. Mvuijlst (talk) 12:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Confusing wording?

 * Some analysts have dismissed the Bradley effect as an excuse for post-computerized election tallies that do match polling results.

Something doesn't scan for me there... what are post-computerized election tallies ? Tallies done by some method that is more advanced than computerized election tallies? I wonder if the "post-" belongs somewhere else, like on "election"?? ++Lar: t/c 11:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Needs fixing
"As long as this kind of abuse is prevalent the Bradley effect will continue. " (from about the first paragraph) I didn't read to see if anyone else has complained about this, but I don't think an encyclopedia is a place to make prophecies about the future. (Maybe God will tire of our bickering and smite all the white people, that would solve it--we just don't know.) Let's stick to what is known about the past and present, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.128.143.3 (talk) 18:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, needs a significant cleanup to meet encyclopedic writing standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.1.157.178 (talk) 18:21, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The Bradley effect does not exist?
In this article http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/the_bradley_effect_selective_m.html V. Lance Tarrance, general election pollster and a member of the strategy team  of George Deukmejian make a good case that the bradley effect does not exist at all but is just a case of selective use of polls

How should this be incorporated in the article should I make a section called criticism of the Bradley effect? some quotes of the article

"[..]the daily Tarrance and Associates tracking polls for the Deukmejian campaign showed the following weekly summations (N=1000 each) during the month of October:

Week of: Oct.7th Oct. 14th Oct. 21st Oct. 28 Nov. 1

Bradley 49 45 46 45 45

Deukmejian 37 41 41 42 44"

"Bradley's win was projected by the most prominent public pollster in the state, Mervin Field [..]his last weekend polling showed a 7-point margin for Bradley, but this was totally at variance from the Tarrance and Associates internal tracking results. Field's own exit polls, on Election Day itself,[...] also predicted a Bradley win. This caused the San Fransisco Chronicle[...] to print 170,000 copies of its early morning Wednesday edition under the headline “Bradley Win Projected.” Also at variance with the Mervin Field exit polls were the NBC and the CBS networks, [...]when they declared George Deukmejian the winner [...]"

"Even later analysis of the 1982 election revealed the weakness in the Bradley Effect theory as Bradley actually won on election day turnout, but lost the absentee vote so badly that Deukmejian pulled ahead to win. That Bradley won the vote on Election Day would hardly seem to suggest a hidden or last minute anti-black backlash—on the contrary, it suggests how easy it would have been for weekend polls and Election Day exit polls to get it wrong, since the decisive group of voters had largely already voted before the final weekend and never showed up at the polls to answer the questions of exit pollsters." —Preceding unsigned comment added by JantjePietje (talk • contribs) 20:43, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info! I’d also seen the article, so I’ve incorporated it – feel free to change or add further as you see fit.
 * Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 23:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The things you added to the Origin had already been added (in summary) form in the Causes section. It really shouldn't be in there twice, so I've restored the old version of the Origin section.  That way, that section simply indicates the origin, without getting into the theory's validity or invalidity.  The Tarrance article's information goes into the Causes section, which was already discussing the issue of valid vs. invalid.  12.155.58.181 (talk) 01:37, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/opinion/20levin.html?_r=1&ref=opinion another source saying that it wasn't race in 1982 i have seen the article develop now and i think it is better to put the criticism not in causes but in origins because the tarrance article and this one are specifically about the bradley race and not the 'bradley effect' in general JantjePietje (talk) 00:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Another Citation for Exit Poll Section
I think this article should be added to the section on exit polls being wrong. http://www.jstor.org/pss/2749175

When reading this article I thought a pre-election poll can be wrong if people change their mind at the last minute, which is their prerogative, but an exit poll can only be wrong if people lie. The exit poll being inaccurate for black candidates and not white candidates proves this article not the pre-election polls. NatronWiki (talk) 01:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't pretend to be a pollster or have any political expertise, but the county where I live has a 4 to 1 ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans, and there isn't a single "Obama For President" sign to be seen in the whole town. I think the Bradley effect will be seen with a vengence in this election. Yes, to many country clubs in the USA. Younger american do not care, but the older white community still want things to be a certain way. They hold a large percent of the US.

96.230.94.164 (talk) 07:30, 21 October 2008 (UTC)daver852

One thing that would be nice to add . ..
. . . would be some hard numbers applied to the arguments against the Bradley effect happening in 1982, with regard to those alternate explanations proposed. The absentee ballot factor, for example, clearly cannot have been the sole, or even the primary, cause of the problem. If you throw out all the absentees and count only "day of" votes, yes, Bradley wins, but his margin of victory would have been less than one quarter of one percent. With the inaccurate polls that caused all of this controversy putting his victory margin at between 5 and 10 percent, clearly there was some other problem or problems at play, besides just not accounting for the absentees.

Given those numbers, the fact that the Deukmejian folks say that their private, internal polls actually called the election correctly all along is a more compelling "against" argument than is the absentee ballot thing, I think.

Several analysts have mentioned that Central Valley turnout of voters who wanted to vote against Prop 15, and then also supported Deukmejian was greater than expected. Sounds like a perfectly good theory, but it also begs the question: Just how many extra votes for Deukmejian did that bring in? If anyone sees any citations that quantify it, that would be a good addition for the article. 216.10.193.22 (talk) 06:29, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Reverse Bradley effect
To quote from the paragraph that was deleted:

"While their cause continues to be debated—for example, many polls underpoll African-Americans and young voters—the pollsters' errors have raised expectations that as the presidential primary season progresses, Obama's polling numbers will be widely scrutinized as analysts try to definitively determine whether the Bradley effect has become a significant factor in the race. An inspection of the discrepancy between pre-election polls and Obama's ultimate support reveals significant bivariate support for the hypothesized 'reverse Bradley effect.' On average, Obama received three percentage points more support in the actual primaries and caucuses than he did during polling; however, he also had a strong ground campaign, and many polls do not question voters with only cell phones, who are predominantly young."

So how is it "still not reverse Bradley"? The source cited states, " This effect appears to be most substantial in states with larger black populations; I have suggested before that it might stem from a sort of reverse Bradley Effect in which black voters were reluctant to disclose to a (presumed) white interviewer that they were about to vote for a black candidate." And even if it isn't, please don't delete information outright, there are plenty of other places in this article that the info could go, we could even create a new section for "possible errors" or something like that. Khoikhoi 09:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Link to Mervin Field
I was surprised to find that Wikipedia didn't have an article on Mervin Field.

If anyone is interested, I have started notes on a biographical article for Mervin Field on my user page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:W3steve/Mervin_Field

I welcome comments, additions, criticisms, etc. w3steve (talk) 03:06, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Too soon to talk about 2008
This section:


 * However, closer inspection of the underlying voting patterns suggests that pre-election polls tended to significantly over-estimate Obama's share of the vote (and significantly under-estimate McCain's) amongst white voters [10]. This would be consistent with a 'Bradley Effect'. Such analyses suggest that this Bradley Effect was masked by other, opposing, factors such as the unusually high turn-out amongst Democrat leaning voting groups (eg African-Americans) and may again become apparent in future elections under different circumstances.

...appears to be based on a single article that compares pre-election polls to exit polls and notices a discrepancy in the white vote split. But it's comparing two sets of polls conducted at different points, and in general Obama's share in pre ones is between 42 & 46% compared to 43% in the exit which is standard margin of error stuff. It's their underestimation of McCain that's the main difference but even this is close to an error margin. The assertion of a Bradley effect is attributed to this article: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/801dvflv.asp

I don't think this article should be making definitive statements at this stage but should wait for expert analysis, not media articles comparing raw figures. There are other reasons why a poll might have over-estimated Obama and/or underestimated McCain - the Republican brand is currently unfashionable and some voters might have been reluctant to admitting voting for it (the equivalent of the British Shy Tory Factor); Obamania was such that it may have meant that people didn't want to admit to voting against the fashionable option (note that Obama's support amongst non-whites was slightly overestimated, albeit with a small sample size); and McCain has quite a history of being a Comeback Kid who is able to rally support very late in the day which may have been missed by pre-election polls. Any of these, together with more mundane issues like methodology errors, could have created this small discrepancy in the figures used. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:34, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

MI Affirmative Action vote note
Polls for amendments and referenda are notoriously flaky for most topics. --RobbieFal 04:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Is there a WP:RS that indicates that? It would be important to note, if so.  Without that, though, I would a bit hesitant to just remove that part, given that the Detroit Free Press article that talked about it wasn't just mentioning tangentially, but rather was specifically referring to it as an example of the Bradley effect.  When I get a chance, I'll also look myself to see if I can dig up something that talks about referenda polling being notorious for being inaccurate. Mwelch 06:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know about specific reliable sources. But, I know that SurveyUSA recieved different results depending on the wording of questions on propositions in 2005 with the California propositions. So, I guess the jury is probably out on this in general. --RobbieFal 08:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.  I've heard about that phenomenon in general, but I believe you're referring to pre-election polls in which the questioner explains to the respondent what the referendum says.  Those results indeed can be very much swayed by how the questioner explains the referendum.  The case mentioned in the article, though, is specifically an exit poll taken after the voters had left the booth.  So I wouldn't expect the wording issue doesn't come into play there.  In that case, one is not asking the voter for an opinion based on how one explained something to them.  One is literally just asking, "Which way did you just vote on Measure X?  Yes or No?"  Mwelch 00:31, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe 100% that the Bradley effect is real. I would like to make a comment:  I have been polled 3 or 4 times and each time I could tell which answers were making the poll-taker happy.  This might be part of the reason for the effect. Steve Dufour 06:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Another case of a layman claiming to say that what PROFESSIONAL polling organizations do is inaccurate, when it is clear that most people have absolutely no knowledge of probability and statistics and how it is operated. Such speculation is at best ignorant, and at worst blasphemous. --rock8591 03:15, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Question
Does the "Bradley/Wilder Effect" refer to the discrepancy between polls and votes or does it refer to the explanation of this discrepancy via voter's misrepresenting themselves to pollsters? This is a huge difference but the article vacillates between them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.200.49.170 (talk) 16:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's the explanation for it. Contrary to what some (particularly the media) seem to think, opinion polling is not a precise science. Every so often you get "rogue" polls that deviate so heavily from all the others around them that suggest an error rate. More generally polls are reliant on the sample being accurately weighted - for instance this article mentions errors when the polls assumed c17% of the voting electorate is black but the actual turnout is closer to 25%. They can also be leading - in a classic episode of the British sitcom Yes Prime Minister Sir Humphrey Appleby demonstrates how to guarantee the outcome of a poll top Bernard Woolley by asking him a series of leading questions that are the arguments in favour national service (peacetime conscription) then asking "are you in favour of introducing it?" He then asks leading questions against then "are you against introducing it"? Both times Woolley says "yes", despite the answers being the opposite.
 * Then you've got the problem of some answers being "unfashionable". Opinion polls in the UK suffered a dent to their reputation when they predicted a narrow Labour lead in the 1992 general election, only for the Conservatives to win with a 7.6% lead. (Before anyone asks about the election being "stolen", UK elections are run impartially and independently from parties, using paper ballot papers. Virtually all allegations of corruption in elections are either about candidates exceeding spending limits or corruptly using postal votes. No-one disputes the impartiality of the staff and in any case counting halls have party activists watching.) Some of this was down to what became known as the Shy Tory Factor whereby voters were reluctant to admit they were voting Conservative but it may also have been related to turnout (in that election the Conservatives got the highest ever number of actual votes for a party in UK history). Polling companies had to adjust their methodology, including creating the British Polling Council.
 * Finally there's the way polls are conducted. Here in the UK it can be done over the internet, by phone or by approaching people in the street. But all these methods have drawbacks and indeed you do still get arguments about which polling company is most accurate and polls with variance. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)


 * A better term for the word "Bradley effect" would be "disparity." It is the result of oftentimes people comparing the MOST favorable or unfavorable poll result of a candidate to the election result; of course there will be a discrepancy in that case, because polls have a margin of error and you won't get the same result with each poll. If you however take the AVERAGE result of election polls, and compare them to the end result, you will be stunned by just how remarkably accurate these polls are. Here are some links for emphasis.


 * Polling organizations predicted Obama to receive 52.1% of the popular vote; he receives 52.9. They also predict the margin of the election to be 7.6% points, it is 7.3%; likely because supporters of 3rd parties dumped a minute percentage of their votes for McCain (a candidate that has a better shot at winning). Notice that though Obama received 52.9% of the popular vote, it is expected that some will underestimate his support at 50%, some will overestimate at 55%. In any case, his support was AT MOST overestimated by 55-52.9 = 2.1%, sometimes underestimated to be 50-52.9 = -2.9%. Even if we take that end result, there's hardly a "Bradley effect," because polls have an expected margin of error as well. To sample a few hundred or a few thousand people in each state, and accurately predict the end result of millions of people is a complex art and science, and these are professional polling organizations doing work.


 * Here is the exit polling for Florida Amendment 2 compared to the actual election result.


 * Here is the exit polling of similar propositions in Arkansas, Arizona, California.   Keep in mind that these are controversial issues where people are oftentimes thought to give to give politically correct responses to interviewees. When you look at the data, there is NO DIFFERENCE between the exit polling and election result! Literally none, as in 0%.


 * For a layman to say that what PROFESSIONAL polling organizations do is inaccurate is at best ignorant, and at worst blasphemous! --rock8591 03:19, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Could this effect actually be simple election fraud?
If all the polls said Bradley was ahead, and if all the exit polls said he was ahead, then wasn't this probably just simple election fraud, where the election was stolen from him, then blamed on the fact he was black?

That just seems like a more reasonable explanation.

05:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dkliman (talk • contribs)

What we now know of election theft from 2000 and 2004 is that election theft in the USA precedes the introduction of touchscreen voting systems (See the 1980's era "VoteScam" documentary http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=924514983687454434). An analysis of 2004 votes (see http://www.truthinvoting.org page for details) shows that EVERY voting system (paper with optical scan, lever-mechanical, touchscreen, etc.) was "red-shifted" by 5-10%. The only exception was hand-counted paper ballots that exhibited a discrepancy of only 1% or less. The discrepancy between exit polls and official counts was NOT explained by the so-call "Reluctant Bush Responder" (rBr) theory because, according to that theory, the skew should have been greater in predominantly Republican districts-- It wasn't. The rBr theory was presented in the MSM as if it were fact and was never questioned in the official press.

So, it's very likely that what we have here is Pundits preparing to explain a Very Big Lie (Why Obama Lost the election in spite of the Polls) with another Very Big Lie (Racists exist and mistate their voting intentions to cover their racism) which was used in 1982 to cover the most likely truth (The 1982 California Governor's Race was stolen).

At the very least, we have to admit we have no way of knowing which theory explains the 1982 Bradley loss. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcbaber (talk • contribs) 17:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That site has a picture of a banner saying "Exit polls don't lie" - ROFLMAO! As I've detailed further down, opinion polling is not an exact science and can often produce inaccurate results when done badly ("Dewey defeats Truman"). If the sample weight is wrong (something this is a particular risk if turnout can be quite variable amongst different groups), if the exit polls aren't being conducted to the last point of polling, if postal votes skew one way and aren't being exit polled, if the voter contact methodology is skewed (not everyone has landlines, internet polling usually requires people to sign up in advance, not everyone wants to be approached in the street etc...), if the campaigning effort in particular localities varies widely with an impact on swings and turnouts, etc... then the poll can produce a misleading result. And exit polls in developed democracies like the US are also often produced purely for the purpose of allowing the media to declare a result before the votes have actually been counted, so aren't going to have huge resources thrown at them.
 * All good opinion polling companies have had the occasional "rogue" result where they produce figures at variance with the general trend, other companies etc... Some have also had a period where their polls have regularly been off, requiring them to rethink both their methodology and weightings. (Weighting is one of the most crucial parts because often the raw number of respondents will not match precisely the various quotas for making the sample representative. A poll showing 51% Obama, 46% McCain, 3% others does not mean that every 100 respondents divided 51:46:3.) You will find examples of periods when the pollsters were wrong in countries that have impartially run elections and no history of accusations of electoral fraud. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:34, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * A better term for the word "Bradley effect" would be "disparity." It is the result of oftentimes people comparing the MOST favorable or unfavorable poll result of a candidate to the election result; of course there will be a discrepancy in that case, because polls have a margin of error and you won't get the same result with each poll. If you however take the AVERAGE result of election polls, and compare them to the end result, you will be stunned by just how remarkably accurate these polls are. Here are some links for emphasis.


 * Polling organizations predicted Obama to receive 52.1% of the popular vote; he receives 52.9. They also predict the margin of the election to be 7.6% points, it is 7.3%; likely because supporters of 3rd parties dumped a minute percentage of their votes for McCain (a candidate that has a better shot at winning). Notice that though Obama received 52.9% of the popular vote, it is expected that some will underestimate his support at 50%, some will overestimate at 55%. In any case, his support was AT MOST overestimated by 55-52.9 = 2.1%, sometimes underestimated to be 50-52.9 = -2.9%. Even if we take that end result, there's hardly a "Bradley effect," because polls have an expected margin of error as well. To sample a few hundred or a few thousand people in each state, and accurately predict the end result of millions of people is a complex art and science, and these are professional polling organizations doing work.


 * Here is the exit polling for Florida Amendment 2 compared to the actual election result.


 * Here is the exit polling of similar propositions in Arkansas, Arizona, California.   Keep in mind that these are controversial issues where people are oftentimes thought to give to give politically correct responses to interviewees. When you look at the data, there is NO DIFFERENCE between the exit polling and election result! Literally none, as in 0%.


 * For a layman to say that what PROFESSIONAL polling organizations do is inaccurate is at best ignorant, and at worst blasphemous! --rock8591 03:06, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry but making personal attacks doesn't make your absolutist faith in polling accurate. Read Shy Tory Factor for details on a well known case in a developed democracy where the polls were spectacularly off and this led to the polling organisations adjusting their methodology. Read also this bit of the FAQ on the respected UK Polling Report website which deals with the point (and this one on Likelihood to Vote, this one on Weighting and this on on Sampling. Those are written by experts in the field of polling and the basic problems are much the same whatever the developed democracy. Timrollpickering (talk) 15:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Palmer effect
The reference cited for the line that states some commentators have noticed a "Palmer effect" reads: "Remember David Palmer, the fictional black president in the hit TV show 24? I do not know whether there is any data to back this up, but my hunch is that he helped create a climate of public acceptance for the notion of a black president. I reckon the Palmer effect was more significant than any Bradley effect. (The so-called distortion in opinion polls caused by voters who don't want to vote for a black candidate, but won't admit that to pollsters.)" I don't think this statement is enough to justify the suggestion that commentators have noted the existence of a Palmer effect. It's an interesting theory but only one commentator is cited and he doesn't seem very certain the effect exists.Hobson (talk) 23:17, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Obama - half-black
I propose the first sentence under the "2008 United States presidential election" section to read "...a half-black..." or "...a part-black..." so as not to mislead readers into thinking he's majorly black. He's equally as white as he is black, and there's a good chance that this fact made the difference for some white voters. ShardFenix (talk) 02:29, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Description of Bradley opponent
It is interesting to note that Bradley's opponent, George Deukmejian is described as "white (of American descent)". This implies that Tom Bradley, being black was not of 'American descent'. Deukmejian's parents are born in Armenia. Bradley traces his family to slavery in Texas. My sources on both persons being Wikipedia.24.190.39.69 (talk) 13:11, 29 November 2014 (UTC)C. Bibuld

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Deleting the section "Reverse Bradley effect"
I'm deleting this section per BeBold, but I wanted to explain my reasoning a little bit.

-The term was previously used in a very different sense by Douglas Wilder, see the section Bradley_effect. There's only one article cited in the deleted section which uses the term "inverse" Bradley effect for Mr Trump, and moreover it is of questionable usefulness since it was published prior to the election.

-It is debatable at best whether the term Bradley effect is even applicable to a race with no African-Americans at the top of the ticket. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mihirpmehta (talk • contribs) 01:26, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

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