Serious question for Bradley Effect believers

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Not a baiting thread. An honest question I've never received a real answer to:

Why doesn't the Bradley Effect appear in primaries? That was the standard excuse used by Bradley believers after Obama won the nomination. But aren't many of the same people voting in primaries supposedly the type of people most likely to lie due to the Bradley Effect? The whole racist white blue collar Democrats deal?

I've never heard a real answer to this question, other than "the electorates in the Democratic primary and general election are different", but that doesn't work considering what I said above.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's just hilarious how this has been asked and answered so many times before.

No I haven't beyond what I already covered in the original post. Why are you defending it anyway? You already admitted the Bradley Effect is nonexistant garbage.

Not a baiting thread. An honest question I've never received a real answer to:

Why doesn't the Bradley Effect appear in primaries? That was the standard excuse used by Bradley believers after Obama won the nomination. But aren't many of the same people voting in primaries supposedly the type of people most likely to lie due to the Bradley Effect? The whole racist white blue collar Democrats deal?

I've never heard a real answer to this question, other than "the electorates in the Democratic primary and general election are different", but that doesn't work considering what I said above.

Because the Bradley Effect is dead and buried. It vanished during the 90's and the only reason it was ressurected by the media was in order to keep a facade of competitiveness in a race which was anything but close.

I agree completely but there are still true believers in the Bradley Effect around here. It has been argued it did happen last year, just in places like Iowa and North Dakota instead of the expected states. No, I'm not joking.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If you would believe its advocates (they're insane, but you can believe who you want) many of such people argue that some people who always vote Republican lie to pollsters and say they're voting for the black guy just because they're worried about being perceived as racist even though, y'know, they've always voted for the other party.  They just don't like the interviewer thinking they're racist or something.

That I always found quite amusing.

The most notable part of the effect, in my opinion, is racists falsely claiming they're undecided.  But you can't really control for other variables and it's a small sample size.  I think the preponderance of information in a presidential race gives racists actual reasons to be able to claim who they are voting for, but like, the Bradley race in CA way back when was diff, in addition to there being more crime & law issues back in the 80s and 90s.

The 1982 CA Gubernatorial race is also greatly misrepresented.

Here's something that's rarely mentioned: Bradley actually won among people who voted on Election Day. His margin of defeat came from a crushing in absentees thanks largely to a well organized campaign from the NRA. Considering the status of polling and cell phones at the time I suspect that absentees might've been just a little underrepresented in the polls.

Then there's the fact the polls were tightening by election day and Bradley in the last one led by only a point with a good chunk undecided. There was a ton of other factors beyond race going on. The media however likely in search of a story invented the theory simply by throwing it out as an explanation as to how Bradley was leading by double digits early on but still lost as "It was RACISM!" is so much easier to understand than the multitude of factors in reality. And we're stuck with it today.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

1.  It occurred in placed where I didn't expect it (IA) and didn't occur in places where I expected it (PA). 

And this is why everyone laughs at you. Why would it happen in Iowa? Why was race such a big factor in Iowa but not in other states with histories of racial tension?

Was Iowa polling a bit off because Iowans were afraid of appearing racist? Is that the only explanation? Is there NO OTHER explanations as to why polls can be off? Does margin of error not exist? The Bradley Effect is effectively being treated by anyone who believes in it as sort of a polling "God of the gaps" rather than the rather bold statement of dubious veracity that it is. Essentially, citing the Bradley Effect is saying that the reason WAS without a doubt because of people lying to avoid appearing racist, NOT any other possible reason. One needs to cite why it's a better explanation than others. If someone can explain why Iowa supposedly discoverd racism at a time when plenty of other states apparentely forgot it (including states humorously cited as examples of the Bradley Effect in 2006 by this kool-aid drinker), then you've got some evidence, but so far I've yet to hear any valid evidence for the Bradley Effect, including the historical evidence which is rather weak (see my bit on the 1982 CA Gubernatorial election above.) But that's not the point really.

Actually this sums up the problem altogether:

Actually, the underpolling is the Bradley Effect

So essentially, a phenoma as common in politcs as air (underpolling or polls being off) is being cited here as something that MUST be the Bradley Effect. When it happens in races not involving black candidates, there's a ton of explanations. But if it happens involving a black one, it can ONLY be the Bradley Effect and can be absolutely NOTHING else. Is that plausible?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Just stop feeding into this, J.J.

BRTD is a sad OCD case. You're never going to get through to him. We can only pray that he finds the help he so desperately needs.

Get through to me? Have you read his argument? Do you really believe there was a Bradley Effect in Iowa?

The one question with Bradley Effect is "Who is effectively lying to the pollster."  It could be that people that are more likely to vote for a Republican candidate are more likely to lie to a pollster in a race where one candidate is black.

That said, I really expected three things:

1.  McCain would underpoll nationally by 1-2 points (I think he more greatly underpolled, but not by much).

2.  The underpolling would not be even state to state (It wasn't).

3.  While Obama would carry PA, McCain would underpoll strongly here (on that I was dead wrong).  PA and IA were the two stated that stunned me in terms of under/over polling.

It is kind of cool the way the "underpoll" effect largely erased the Bradley Effect, except of course where there was no Bradley Effect, the location of the perimeters of which may have been nowhere, somewhere, or everywhere, depending on the scope and reach of the "underpoll" counter riptide. It is sort of like positive and negative mass; the relationship between the two is hard to describe.

And there you have it. 

Actually, the underpolling is the Bradley Effect, though it has diminished over time.  Nationally it looked like 2-3 points.  I was expecting 1-2 points.

Two points: 

1.  It occurred in placed where I didn't expect it (IA) and didn't occur in places where I expected it (PA). 

2.  Obama underpolled (meaning he did better in voting that the polls showed) in states with a high Mexican descent population.  (Now that isn't exactly good for the GOP.)

WHY THE HELL IS EVERY CASE OF UNDERPOLLING AUTOMATICALLY THE GODDAMN BRADLEY EFFECT YOU HACK???

You actually just put my earlier post into fewer words and said it much more succinctly.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

WHY THE HELL IS EVERY CASE OF UNDERPOLLING AUTOMATICALLY THE GODDAMN BRADLEY EFFECT YOU HACK???

I'd still like an answer from J.J.

I don't think he's even attempted to answer this, despite it being the foundation of his entire argument and one of the many holes in it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

1.  It occurred in placed where I didn't expect it (IA) and didn't occur in places where I expected it (PA). 

And this is why everyone laughs at you. Why would it happen in Iowa? Why was race such a big factor in Iowa but not in other states with histories of racial tension?

If you have ask about "racial tension" then you are just too stupid to understand.  It has to do with the person being polled thinking, "If I this answer, [whatever "this answer" is], the pollster will think I'm racist.  I don't want the pollster to think I'm racist, so I won't this answer."

OK so why is this more likely to happen in Iowa than other states? There has to be a reason. You basically seem to think the Bradley Effect is because of some Polling God throwing darts at a map and then cursing each state that he hits with it. It doesn't happen that way. Unless one can explain why Iowans would be more likely to lie for racial reasons, it seems more likely that something else was at work as Lunar has explained.

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We didn't have this in the last election, not to this extent.  Now, isn't a giant effect, and it's diminished over the years, but it was still present in 2008.

Yeah because polling has never been off in an election involving white candidates before. And of course there never was any poll off in Obama's favor (Nate Silver pointed out that the error in many southern states in Obama's favor was greater than the polling error in favor of Hillary in New Hampshire.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

OK so why is this more likely to happen in Iowa than other states? There has to be a reason. You basically seem to think the Bradley Effect is because of some Polling God throwing darts at a map and then cursing each state that he hits with it. It doesn't happen that way. Unless one can explain why Iowans would be more likely to lie for racial reasons, it seems more likely that something else was at work as Lunar has explained.

That I don't know, and as I've said it was a surprise.   So was PA, where Obama underpolled.  So was MN where Obama overpolled.

So if you can't explain it, then you can't say with certainty that it was definately the Bradley Effect and clearly not any other explanation. And Obama did NOT overpoll here, as the polling database gives him an average of 53%, and he got 54%. It also gives him 54% in Iowa, within the MoE of what he got.

Yeah because polling has never been off in an election involving white candidates before. And of course there never was any poll off in Obama's favor (Nate Silver pointed out that the error in many southern states in Obama's favor was greater than the polling error in favor of Hillary in New Hampshire.)

Please forget primary races.  Did we have these kind of errors in the last presidential election?  Not that I recall.

And, we saw this in the national polls as well.

There is one other factor as well.  There was a pattern to Obama's undercounting.  He did better than he polled in three states with a high Mexican origin population, NM, NV, and CO.

No other election has had polls been off before? LMAO!

We have the database of 2004 polls here. Check out Wisconsin: https://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/GENERAL/CAMPAIGN/2004/polls.php?fips=55

More off than any of the states you're citing as evidence of the Bradley Effect.

As far as the national polls go: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=89904.0

Some were off, some were fairly accurate, nothing was insanely off to a point where MoE wouldn't explain it except one really bad poll where Obama actually underpolled.

I don't have the time now to compile the reality to actuality of every state, but there were a few more off I've noticed with a casual glance. I think stranger also came up with the best point here that you completely ignored:

Okay guys, here's the thing: with respect to the 2008 election, in the set of states where one candidate or the other underpolled, Obama should underpoll roughly half the time. There are any number of reasons the polls could be off, the Bradley Effect is just one of them. Now, if say Obama had underpolled in 35 or 40 states, you might have a case, but he didn't. And the Bradley and Reverse Bradley Effects really don't explain why, for example, Obama would overpoll in Wisconsin but underpoll in Iowa.

So J.J....tell me, do you actually believe the bulls**t you keep repeating here...or is it just that you like trolling....or what?

Good question actually. Especially since he's basically the only person here who takes it seriously and still believe in the Bradley Effect.