Consider the Bradley Effect in NH

...The term Bradley effect or Wilder effect refers to a phenomenon which has led to inaccurate voter opinion polls in some American political campaigns between a white candidate and a non-white candidate.<1><2><3> Specifically, there have been instances in which statistically significant numbers of white voters tell pollsters in advance of an election that they are either genuinely undecided, or likely to vote for the non-white candidate, but those voters exhibit a different behavior when actually casting their ballots. White voters who said that they were undecided break in statistically large numbers toward the white candidate, and many of the white voters who said that they were likely to vote for the non-white candidate ultimately cast their ballot for the white candidate. This reluctance to give accurate polling answers has sometimes extended to post-election exit polls as well.

Researchers who have studied the issue theorize that some white voters give inaccurate responses to polling questions because of a fear that they might appear to others to be racially prejudiced. Some research has suggested that the race of the pollster conducting the interview may factor into that concern. At least one prominent researcher has suggested that with regard to pre-election polls, the discrepancy can be traced in part by the polls' failure to account for general conservative political leanings among late-deciding voters... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect

DID "THE BRADLEY EFFECT" BEAT OBAMA IN NEW HAMPSHIRE?...
NASHUA, NH – Barack Obama was supposed to win New Hampshire.

The polls going into Tuesday's New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary had him running ahead of Hillary Clinton by up to 13 points.

Yet, when the returns came in on Tuesday night, Obama lost by three points to fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Were the polls flawed?

Or was it just another instance of The Bradley Effect?

The Bradley Effect refers to an electoral phenomenon first identified in a 1982 California gubernatorial election.

Tom Bradley, the popular mayor of Los Angeles, was the supposed frontrunner in an open race for the state's top job. Polls showed the African-American Democrat running well ahead of white Republican candidate George Deukmejian. Yet, when the returns came in, Bradley lost by more than 50,000 votes.

The result made no sense. The gubernatorial election was one of the few Democratic losses in what was a good year for the party. Bradley was an able politician with a sound record. Analysts took a new look at the polls, which seemed to have been conducted appropriately.

They asked: What are we missing here?... http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=268328



Ask yourself, is it more likely that there was a massive Diebold/machine conspiracy, or that there was a documented polling factor at work?

If so, let's see how this plays out in SC. It should especially show among the white voters there (probably in some invisible margin going Edwards way).

of white voters for the "Bradley effect" to be in play.I don't know that one will have tha scenario in SC.

It would serve as a good test. I will dive into the polling data after the SC primary to see if this holds water.

Of course, the effect might not happen everywhere. As the second post points out, a unique demographic in NH is the White Flight democrats who left the Boston area during the desegregation period of the 1970's.

It is quite possible (maybe) that White SC Democrats are much more 'with' the idea of a bi-racial candidate. We shall see... (However, knowing a bit about SC, I doubt it).

I think Obama's slight loss was just as attributable to
the "Young people don't vote" effect.

That is, much of Obama's support comes from young people,
but when it comes to actually voting, they don't. On Tuesday,
Mr. Tesha and I spent a lot of time at Ward 1 in Nashua, New
Hampshire (Mr. T was there essentially all day, from opening
to closing) and the truth is that *VERY FEW* young people
actually came out and voted. Oh, they were there holding
signs for candidates (lots of Hillary, lots of Obama, and
plenty of McCain and Paul), but when you tallied up who
was actually going in to vote, it was mostly thirty-somethings
and up. And a *VERY LARGE* part of the crowd were the white-
hairs.

*THAT* is probably the single biggest reason why Obama
couldn't convert great poll numbers into an election
victory. On the Democratic side, exit polling put the
white-haired crowd strongly into Hillary's camp.

Tesha

for GD sanity reasons...