The polls in several battleground states are tight. A small number of votes could swing the outcome one direction or another. An unknown variable that has lingered over this campaign is: Will race be a factor that tips that balance of the election? Is the Bradley Effect in play with pre-election polls? Will undecided voters disproportionately break for the candidate of their own race?
Brian Schaffner looks for answers to these questions by comparing pre-election and exit polls in the 2006 Tennessee Senate race. In that contest Harold Ford, a black, challenged white candidate Bob Corker. Ford trailed Corker by 4% in late campaign polls and ultimately lost by 3%.
Schaffner compared Ford’s support with early deciders and late deciders. His conclusion?
[I]f you believe the comparison, then the experience from Tennessee in 2006 would suggest that there is little reason to expect late deciders to break against Obama because of his race. To the contrary, Ford actually did slightly better among late deciders in 2006, something that allowed him to finish a few points closer than pre-election polling had indicated. If a similar dynamic works for Obama, he may win by a larger, not smaller, margin than the current polling suggests.
Are Tennessee voters a representative sample from which we draw this conclusion? I don’t have a reason to believe that they are any less racially sensitive than the nation at large. There’s no unique Tennessee tradition of supporting black candidates for statewide office. Since Tennessee is marginally part of the old “South” one might argue that a black candidate is at a bigger disadvantage than in many other parts of the country. So it’s not a giant leap to conclude that if race only had a negligible affect on late-deciding voters in the Tennessee senate race, it may not be a significant factor for late deciders in the 2008 presidential election.
Since Ford over-performed polls, the Tennessee precedent also discounts the impact of the Bradley Effect. It doesn’t support the theory that voters told pollster they were voting for Ford, then voted for Corker.
It will be a positive turn in America if the election plays out this way–if Obama is not penalized because he is a black candidate. It’s been my working assumption that Obama will under-perform late polls by about 2%, due to racial bias, inaccurate polling methodology, low young-voter turnout, or whatever. I hope I’m wrong.