Saturday night I was sitting with my wife drinking margaritas at the Mission Burrito on Richmond in Houston watching our kids play with about ten others when I heard the people at the table next to us talk about the Bradley Effect. I'm starting to get sick of it.
Anyway, the NYT featured a long discussion of it today, and made an interesting point--among several. Researchers noticed that the difference between a black candidates poll numbers and his or her electoral vote (the Bradley effect is the difference between the two, if the former exceeds the latter) declined after 1996. That was the year of welfare reform, so they speculate that this legislation lessened the negative images some whites had about black candidates. Since 1996, poll numbers have actually underestimated votes for black candidates -- the reverse Bradley Effect. In states where racism is still a problem, whites may actually be reluctant to express support for a black candidate.
The times they are a changin'.
