Maybe it isn’t over after all
For those, including me, who think that the presidential race is over, the online political journal Salon has an interesting article about the Bradley effect and Obama’s vulnerability. Written by veteran GOP political operative Bill Greener (he was, among other things, manager of the 1996 Republican convention), its thesis is that Obama needs to stay above 50% in battleground states. Otherwise, the “undecided” vote will break toward McCain because much of it consists of white voters who aren’t really undecided at all.
The article is important, because the Bradley effect is about the only way Obama can lose at this point. No conventional strategy can win the race for McCain. Reports this morning indicate that both candidates will be spending the last week in red states, putting McCain on the defensive.
Here are some key points in the article:
* Despite what the polls seem to be saying, a closer look at the numbers shows that a Democratic victory is not a foregone conclusion. Why? Because if history is any guide, Barack Obama, as an African-American candidate for political office, needs to be polling consistently above 50 percent to win. And in crucial battleground states, he isn’t.
* Much has been written about the so-called Bradley Effect, in which voters lie to pollsters about whether they’re willing to vote for a black candidate. . . . There are two other ways in which voters can mislead pollsters about their intentions. One is to decline to participate in a poll. (More than one expert has suggested that conservatives are more likely to decline than liberals, meaning there could be many uncounted McCain voters.) The other is when [voters] participate but . . . say they’re undecided when they really aren’t. It’s the latter phenomenon in particular, I think, that gives John McCain a chance at winning enough swing states to reach the White House.
* There’s an old rule in politics that an incumbent candidate is always in danger when he dips under 50 percent, even if he is leading his opponent in the polls. It’s all about the undecideds. In a race with an incumbent candidate and a challenger, on Election Day the undecideds tend to break for the challenger, at rates as high as 4 to 1. If an incumbent is polling at, say, 47 to 45 percent with 8 percent undecided, there’s a good chance he’s going to wind up losing 49 to 51. As it’s sometimes expressed, if you’re an incumbent, what you see is what you get.
* The same pattern seems to be true for African-American candidates in much of the country. If you’re a black candidate running against a white candidate, what you see is what you get. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re an incumbent or a challenger. If you’re not polling above 50 percent, you should be worried. As of this writing, Barack Obama is not polling consistently above 50 percent in a number of electoral-vote-rich swing states, including Ohio and Florida. He should be worried.
Here is what I think is wrong with Greener’s reasoning. As I wrote last week in the post, “It’s Over,” in which I called the race for Obama, the problem McCain faces is that Obama’s lead in the states carried by John Kerry is insurmountable. I’ll update the list of those states with the latest polling (from pollster.com):
Kerry States (251 electoral votes)
ME 53.5 – 38.5 (4)
NH 50.6 – 43.7 (4)
VT 57.2 – 34.1 (3)
MA 57.8 – 38.3 (12)
RI 48.2 – 30.9 (4)
CT 54.4 – 39.4 (7)
NY 58.8 – 35.5 (31)
PA 52.7 – 40.0 (21)
NJ 52.5 – 40.6 (15)
DE 55.2 – 39.5 (3)
MD 55.5 -37.5 (10)
DC 82.0 -13.0 (3)
MI 54.0 – 38.1 (17)
MN 51.4 -42.6 (10)
WI 51.4 – 42.6 (10)
WA 52.3 – 42.7 (11)
OR 53.1 – 39.7 (7)
CA 54.7 – 38.1 (55)
HI 63.8 – 30.2 (4)
Bush swing states 2004 in which Obama has > 50% (12 electoral votes)
IA 53.1 – 41.2 (7)
NM 50.4 – 43.9 (5)
Running total: 263 electoral votes
Red states in 2004 in which Obama has > 50% (22 electoral votes)
VA 51.8 – 43.7 (13)
CO 51.3 – 44.6 (9)
If you go by Greener’s “What you see is what you get” rule, Obama has enough votes to win. He is over 50% in states with 285 electoral votes (270 to win). The undecided vote doesn’t matter at all if he holds onto his vote. It’s true that he could dip below 50% in New Hampshire and New Mexico, and he is running below 50% in Rhode Island. But RI is a certain blue state. Even if he lost all three of these states (13 electoral vote), he would still have 272 electoral votes. If you look at McCain’s % in these states, there is not a single one in which he has as much as 45% of the vote. And in Pennsylvania, a state that is the centerpiece of McCain’s “narrow victory” strategy, a poll released yesterday has Obama in front, 52-40.
More: Obama is leading in these red states:
NC – 49.0
NV – 49.4
OH – 49.6
FL – 48.0
ND – 44.9
He might win North Carolina and Nevada. I don’t think he’ll win FL or OH. But he doesn’t need any of them, so long as he holds onto the majority in the states where is is over 50%.
Tagged: bradley effect.
Tellnitlikeitis says:
The Bradley effect is crap. That contest was a quarter century ago.
Today’s polling cannot measure young voters because they don’t have land line phones; nor do they show up in data bases for pollsters.
Also, most polls don’t show a huge, huge turnout among African Americans and their nearly unaninmous support for Obama.
This independent says Obama will rack up more than 350 electoral college votes.
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paulburka says:
I’m still putting his total at between 290 and 320.
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trza says:
Fivethirtyeight did a post on the same article:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/bradley-effect-or-elephant-effect.html
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Greener is Selling Something says:
This nonsense from Bill Greener is nicely debunked by Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com.
In summary,
(1) Greener cherry picks his races to reach this conclusion (Greener omits analysis of the Lott-Fleming race);
(2) Greener also cherry picks his polling data (Greener omits those polls which refute his premises);
(3) Once you use polling averages instead of cherry picked polls and apply them to the five races Greener cherry picked, you find that 2 black candidates outperformed their polling (Ford and Swann) while 3 underperformed (Blackwell, Steele, and Patrick), but there is yet another factor Greener omits from consideration;
(4) Among the 3-out-of-5 black candidates who did worse than their polling averages, the one Democrat (Patrick) did only fractionally worse and the only two who performed noticeably below their polling projection were Republicans (Blackwell and Steele), and if you look at the white Republicans in the same states where black Republicans fared most poorly, you will see that it was the Republicans who failed to meet polling expectations and not just black Republicans.
In summary, Greener cherry picks 5 races, and if you don’t allow him to also cherry pick the polling data he uses, then 2 of his 5 races refute his theses (Ford and Swann), one race shows the successful black Democrat only marginally under-performing as compared to his polls (Patrick), and the only two black candidates who fell significantly short of their polling expectations were Republicans who fell only as far short of their expectations as the white Republicans in their state because 2006 was a disastrous year for Republicans of all colors.
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Anthony says:
Paul, the Reverse Bradley Effect has also been touched on in other writings. This posits that Whites who won’t admit to voting for a Black candidate in public may do so privately, in the voting booth, and therefore increase the projected votes for the Black candidate.
This is another phenomena to consider. We’ll see how it actually shakes out. It’ll be interesting either way.
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Burka's Research Assistant says:
I’m with everyone else. Greener is wrong. Silver owns him.
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richard says:
If obama IS elected you and Texas Monthly should feel very comfortable with his Marxist views.
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Pat says:
To Richard at 12:49pm:
Marxism may not be radical enough for them. It doesn’t involve BBQ.
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texun says:
Yes, indeed. If Obama wins, TM will put Fidel on the mag cover and relocate to Venezuela. Or Massachusetts. And the litmus test is BBQ.
Anybody who thinks that Obama has significant Marxist views doesn’t listen to Obama and hasn’t read Das Kapital. I recommend that Republicans spend all of their time between now and the first Tuesday in November reading that tome; it’s irrelevant, but it will keep them occupied.
I agree, though, that McCain will reach the White House–on one of those guided tours.
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Walter Mondull says:
Yack yack yack. I’ve already voted and no one knows who I voted for and I’m not telling and I think many many voters are not telling. I will say this though. I belong to one party and I voted for the candidate of the other party and I’m not a racist or a liberal or a conservative. Many of my neighbors, friends, and co-workers are in the same boat. As Yogi said, “It ain’t over till it’s over” and that is good or bad depending on whom you are rooting for. Now let the pundits figure out who I’m for. I’m the sacred swing voter. Good luck figuring me out. Good day.
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West Texas Hillbilly says:
I think the Bradley effect is bogus. I still see it in the 360-365 range.
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Anthony says:
Bush and Paulson rush to nationalize the banks, following Britain, after Greenspan admits that market self-regulation was a misguided myth and Obama is the socialist?
Folks calling Obama anything other than a good ole’ fashioned capitalist either don’t have their facts straight or they’re being dishonest. Which one is it there now?
Here in West Texas we know who the real corporate welfare Maxists are — we’re not fooled by the Rs next to their names.
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Geraldine Ferraro says:
Are you kidding me? Obama is lucky he’s black.
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easy e says:
Nate Silver is going to rule the world, if you don’t think he does already.
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Joe the Bummer says:
Paul, I think the Kerry states actually add to 252. Kerry got 251 because one Kerry elector voted for John Edwards for prez and vice prez.
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West Texas Hillbilly says:
Re: Geraldine.
Obama’s black?
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Anonymous says:
Obama needs 269 electoral college votes because Obama would win an Electoral College tie.
Obama will exceed the 269 total early in the evening just with states east of the Missouri River.
Obama will also win plenty of Electoral College votes west of the Missouri, but he’ll have more than the 269 Electoral College votes he needs from the Eastern and Central Time Zones and so we’ll be able to go to bed early.
P.S. – Will Sarah Palin finally endorse the opponent of her Alaskan compatriot now that Ted Stevens has been found guilty on multiple counts of fraudulent conduct?
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texun says:
Don’t wait for Palin’s endorsement of a Democrat! Ted Stephens has been convicted by his peers, but she’ll stick with him. After all, she used Wasilla city employees, equipment, and supplies to run for the Republican nomination for Lt. Governor of Alaska, so she shouldn’t throw stones.
Privately, she will probably do a good bit of gloating because her “reform” campaign has been aimed at taking over the party from Stevens’s organization. Now she’ll win that battle by default, even if he wins on appeal.
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Walter Mondull says:
Who is Sen. Stephens? Oh, you mean Sen. Stevens. Yeah, he’s been toast long before this conviction. In fairness though, Palin was never part of the Stevens-Murkowski crowd and ran against them. Maybe you missed that memo on DailyKos?
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texun says:
Ted Stephens is his assumed name.
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The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton says:
Walter-
In my experience, candidates for office don’t make campaign ads wherein their enemies endorse them. They make campaign ads wherein their buds endorse them.
Por ejemplo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nTX-oJUCaU&eurl
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