The 2nd debate

[geisha_guy]

Been ages since I posted, but up watching the 2nd debate tonight. Its hard putting faith in the American people after 8 years of Bush, but I have to believe they wont fall for the blatant flip-flopping of the McCain campaign over the past few weeks, and he's doing nothing to dispel that tonight so far

Comments

[anonymous]

The Bradley Effect (the tendency of voters to say they'll vote for a black candidate in polls and then not do so in the actual election) is somewhat overhyped. Though it seems to exist in some states, it's not uniform across the US and appears to have diminished in recent times.

In fact, during the primaries, there was a reverse Bradley effect - where Obama over -performed compared to his poll numbers.

538.com (which is a great poll projection site, btw) has lots of geektastics stats and analysis on this:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/persistent-myth-of-bradley-effect.html

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/04/reverse-bradley-effect-fact-or-fiction.html

Though the polls will tighten, I think, before election day - barring a serious disaster or the mother of all October Surprises, I think it's Obama FTW.

P.

[geisha_guy]

My focus was very much on voter turnout to be honest.

I still believe some of the polls are skewed, but as you say, not across the country. To be honest, the primaries version of the 'reverse bradley effect' as you put it was totally off as there was a combination sexism/racism thing going on.

[anonymous]

Well, Obama looks to have that covered too.

Democratic self-identification in polls and voter registrations are way up this year in a lot of states - in part from the long primary slog, in part from Dem efforts since then.

Voter self-identification stats from January - http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/31/154647/354

This link covers stats from July, but the Dems have been running aggressive voter registration efforts since then - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/10/101724/684/36/549146

According to polls, Obama supporters also seem to express more enthusiasm for their candidate than McCain supporters. Though it narrowed after the Plain pick, it appears to have reopened:

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/the_enthusiasm_gap_returns.php

And Obama's running a huge get-out-the-vote ground game (election offices, door-to-door canvassing, phone banking etc) across a ton of states. Take a look at the On the Road series of articles on 538.com: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/on%20the%20road

Though it's not a done deal by any means, it's looking good for the Dems at the moment:

http://punditkitchen.com/2008/09/05/political-pictures-barack-obama-chill-out-got-this/

:)

P.