Race Matters: Obama and the 'Bradley Effect'

Let’s talk about race.

Actually, let’s not. I’m white and Jewish — two groups not exactly very oppressed these days. So what do I know? But we can talk about the impact race might be having right now on the presidential election, and how it could all play out in November.

The dirty little secret no one will talk about (well, almost no one — Mickey Kaus is unafraid to go there) is the Bradley Effect. Put simply, people lie to pollsters when the candidate in question is black. How many of them are actually racist? Probably not too many — but no one these days wants to even be thought of as a racist. So they lie. In the weird world of American race relations, that’s progress.

How big is the Bradley Effect? Nobody knows. But Kaus theorizes that it — along with McCain sucking up a bunch of the independent voters — might have been enough to give New Hampshire to Hillary Clinton back in January. Heck, as soon as Obama looked like a lock on the nomination, even people who really did intend to vote for him seemed to switch back to Clinton, giving her lots of wins at the end. Too little, too late for Hill — but maybe enough to give us a feel for the size of the Effect.

Call it … two points? Three? I’ve seen estimates as high as five percent, but let’s be conservative here.

The next question is: Is the Bradley Effect evenly distributed, or does it vary by state or region?

My guess — again, just a guess — is that it varies, and maybe pretty widely. Counterintuitively, perhaps, I’d say there’s less of an effect in the South. People there deal with race (not — ahem — always very successfully) almost every day, and in ways the rest of the country never had to. And frankly I’d expect a southerner to be more willing on average to tell a pollster exactly what he or she really thinks.

In liberal bastions like California and New York, the Bradley Effect might be greater than in other places. There’s more pressure to conform to the prevailing liberal orthodoxy, and fewer conservatives to lean on, too.

Midwestern voters sure are nice, even to poll takers. I’d expect a pretty solid BE from Ohio through Kansas.

Of course, the Effect will be partly counterbalanced by black Obama voters who might not want to be seen as voting solely on his race — but who will do just that, anyway. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’ll be pretty excited my own self when we finally get our first Jewish president since Roosevelt. (That’s a joke, people.)

So if we’re being honest here, and I’ve certainly tried to be as dispassionate as possible, here’s how to read the state polls.

For southern states, subtract 1% or less from Obama’s support. It’s in the South where I’d expect the weakest Bradleys, and Obama’s strongest over-performance with black voters. In the northeast and the west coast, Obama could lose as much as five percent — but interestingly enough, that’s not enough to cost him any of those states except perhaps New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. The entire west coast is a lock — but savvy betters might want to put some money on McCain in Oregon. Yes, Oregon. The midwest and mountain states? Subtract two or three points. In the more urban-industrial midwestern states (and Colorado), black over-voting will again help compensate, limiting the damage Obama suffers from the Bradley Effect. But will it be enough? In Wisconsin it might be, in Missouri not so much.

To put it more bluntly, if on election day Obama leads in any given state by “only” 1-5%, then there’s still a very good chance McCain will win that state.

Is the Bradley Effect real? Yes, it is. We’ve seen it before, as recently as the Democratic primaries. How will it play out? Obviously, the polls are of no help to us here, so we have to go on guts. And my gut tells me that the Bradley Effect could cost Obama Michigan and Pennsylvania — and thus the election.

We can’t see a candidate’s internal polls, of course, but we can get an idea of what they say, by watching what the candidate does and listening to what he says. And in the last month, Obama has one-upped everyone on getting federal dollars to the Detroit automakers, and spent nearly all his time since the Republican National Convention campaigning in Pennsylvania. This, from a candidate who once threatened to force his opponent on the defensive in Republican strongholds.

Those days seem to be over — and the Bradley Effect is to blame.