Madonna & Young: No evidence of a 'Bradley effect' here (PA)

[struggle4progress]

... The questions raised by the Bradley effect as election day approaches are critical ones. Assuming that Obama is comfortably ahead in the polls, are those polls reliable; is Obama's lead large enough to overcome the Bradley effect; and most crucially, is it large enough in the close battleground states where the election will be won or lost? ...

The 2006 network exit poll in the Rendell/Swann Pennsylvania contest offers some additional evidence against the Bradley effect. Regionally and demographically Swann did very well with those very groups most suspect as Bradley effect voters. In Carville's "Alabama," Swann won small city and rural Pennsylvania 52 percent to 47 percent, representing about 16 percent of the state's voters. And he won the born-again or evangelical Christian segments of the electorate 60 percent to 40 percent.

Moreover in southwestern Pennsylvania, widely touted as a hotbed of Bradley effect voters, Lynn Swann consistently outpaced the vote for fellow Republican, white U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, among the blue collar working class electorate there. In fact, of the seven counties in the region, only in Westmoreland did Santorum do better than Swann and then only by a single percentage point.

Finally, the broader national analysis done on the Bradley effect has concluded it is largely a myth or at worst, real once but now a defunct phenomenon. One recent Harvard study of 133 elections from 1989 to 2006 showed some Bradley effect (about 3 points) until 1996 -- but thereafter none or perhaps a slight advantage to black candidates ...

http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/anotherview/all-madonna11-1.6654247oct31,0,1252116.story