Polls may underestimate Obama's support by 3 to 4 percent, researchers say

General Science / Other
(PhysOrg.com) -- Current polls of the presidential election may be underestimating Barack Obama's support by 3 to 4 percent nationally and possibly larger margins in the Southeast and some strongly Republican states, according to University of Washington researchers.


Psychologist Anthony Greenwald and political scientist Bethany Albertson, who analyzed data from the 32 states holding Democratic primaries, said race played an unexpectedly powerful role in distorting pre-election poll findings and the same scenario could play out in the election between Obama and John McCain.

"The Clinton-Obama raced dragged on so long, but it generated a lot of data. It is the only existing basis on which to predict how a black candidate will do in a national general election," said Greenwald, who pioneered studies how people's unconscious bias affects their behavior. "The level of inaccuracy of the polls in the primaries was unprecedented."

Prior to the start of the primary season, the UW researchers thought the so-called Bradley effect would play a key role in the 2008 election. Previously, this effect showed exaggerated pre-election poll support for black candidates in some prominent elections in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Bradley effect is named for former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, a black, who lost a close 1982 gubernatorial election in California after holding a solid lead in the polls. As the 2008 primaries played out, Greenwald and Albertson found that the Bradley effect only showed up in three states -- California, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

However, they found a reverse Bradley effect in 12 primary states. In these states they found actual support for Obama exceeded pre-election polls by totals of 7 percent or more, well beyond the polls' margins of error. These errors ranged up to 18 percent in Georgia.

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http://www.physorg.com/news142862643.html

then it will be a landslide.

We can't let our guard down so an election steal can happen in a "close" race.

I may be one of the few here who actually thinks the polls are a pretty good rough barometer. I'm not going to pretend that we're up more than polls indicate, and I'm not going to pretend we're down more than they indicate. And that doesn't mean I'm complacent.

The national averaging is reliable. Certain states always poll overly friendly to one side or another but whenever I've seen creative alteration to national polling it normally flops. I'm not buying the cell phone factor or anything else worth several points to Obama.

The study linked atop this thread is not particularly valid, IMO, simply because primary polling is hardly equivalent to general election polling. There's a reason the betting sites are always wary of putting up fixed prices on primary elections; they don't trust the polling.

I can't see Obama winning many other Deep South states, but Georgia is definitely in play due to this. Also, it's a very good sign for North Carolina and Virginia.

Pollsters are only polling those with landlines. One poll I saw said Obama has the support of cell phone users 65-35. Many, many people only use cell phones as their primary or only phone line now. Older people use landlines.

I think we're cutting a huge amount of voters out of these polls and of those, a large majority are going to vote Obama.

So this 3-4 point deficit is ridiculously low if you ask me.

Now whether that lead will hold up under voter purges and voting machine hacks... we'll see.

Rp

They might be a segment that might consider themselves to be very busy.

it was the CA Absentee ballots cast prior to the Iowa results were know effect.

New Hampshire was the primaries held only 3 days after Iowa results and how polls could easily be wrong for a number of reasons (considering that Hillary had been up by 20 pts in that state prior to Iowa) considering the lag getting the poll data to the actual event being miniscule.

I don't know about Rhode Island though. :shrug:

And I know I'm not going to get a damn thing done!

The only issue is what phenomenon holds in key swing states. If a state has a major % AA population then obviously the "Bradley" effect could operate in the reverse.

Study shows that "Bradley" effect hold when there is social turmoil associated with significant AA pop in the range of 10-15% but Whites are still the large majority.

They certainly were.

Fewer people would have negative view of a black candidate compared to 1982.

There would still be some negative view but how much of a difference between now and 1982?