The Reverse Bradley Effect

We've heard a lot of talk during this campaign about the so-called "Bradley effect." That's the theory that some white voters won't admit they won't vote for a black candidate.

But we haven't heard as much talk about the "reverse Bradley effect." That's the theory that unusually high black voter turnout will compensate for the unexpectedly lower white votes for Obama.

With traditionally Republican states like Virginia and North Carolina in play in the 2008 election, some experts are pointing toward the relatively large black populations as an explanation for Obama's success in those southern states. 

But now there's a new variation on the "reverse Bradley effect," articulated by North Carolina's Democratic Governor Mike Easley Wednesday night on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show. Easley suggests that some white southern voters may actually lie about their plans to vote for Obama. In Easley's theory, these white southerners may not want to admit to their (racist?) white counterparts that they're voting for a black guy.

Easley attributes the theory to his barber, who has an informal focus group of North Carolina men. "A lot of people that have been saying all along they'd never vote for Barack Obama but they're going go in the voting booth and they're going do it because in their economic interests," said Easley. "I think the message there is 'I like McCain but I love my job,'" he said. 

Writer Rutherford Lawson sees Easley's point. "When all the good ole boys get together and talk about how they could never vote for a 'negro,' there is an element of macho swagger to it. An element of giving in to peer pressure." But, Lawson says, "When they get in the voting booth, shielded from the glare of their ignorant friends, there is the distinct possibility that they may say 'McCain just ain't gonna cut it for me the next four years. I'm just gonna have to vote for the negro. I just won't tell nobody.'" As Lawson suggests, "there is a distinct possibility that economics may trump bigotry this time around."

The term "Bradley effect" is traced to Tom Bradley, the African-American mayor of Los Angeles who lost the 1982 California governor's race despite a significant lead in the polls. A similar event took place in 1989 when Virginia's Doug Wilder barely won election as the state's first black governor after polls suggested he was comfortably ahead.

A Pew Research study by Anthony Greenwald and Bethany Albertson looked at the polling data from the 2008 primary campaign and found a more complicated version of the theory. The researchers found that pre-election polls in early primary states did exaggerate support Obama in three states with relatively low black populations -- New Hampshire, California and Massachusetts. But, the researchers found, the reverse was true in South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia, where blacks make up a larger bloc of voters.

"The findings in South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia suggested to us the discovery of a new 'reverse' Bradley effect, i.e., that in states with relatively large African American populations, pre-primary polls tended to underestimate support for Obama," the study concluded.

The researchers determined that "race is still strongly operative as a factor in America's state elections, but also that its impact depends in substantial part on the racial mixture of the state in question."

Writer Daniel Okrent also thinks a "reverse Bradley effect" may show up in the election next month. Writing in the Huffington Post this week, Okrent notes that 51 percent of registered black voters showed up at the polls in recent elections. He speculates the number may rise 10 to 20 percent or more this year. "And that's just registered black voters," he says. "Registration of new black voters in states like Virginia and North Carolina has been one of the Obama organization's most notable accomplishments. As a result, I'm looking for the debut of the Obama Effect -- a level of increased participation among black voters that may change the electoral map for years to come," he says.