Don’t blame the Wilder/Bradley Effect: Debunking the racist New Hampshire Voters Theory

With the media and the Obama campaign struggling to find an explanation for Obama’s stunning campaign collapse, both are grasping at straws. Rather than just admitting that they were wrong, they’re sadly turning to…the race card. Or the Bradley/Wilder Effect. However if both parties would just look at the facts they would see that race was not a factor. So what makes me so sure? Easy…

1. The Polls were right! Not about who would win but about Obama’s support. Obama’s support in the pre primary polls and his support on election night were almost exactly the same. This chart from Pollster.com, shows a compilation of polls taken days before the poll. Game over, argument disproven.

Polls underestimated Clinton’s support particularly among women as a whole and older women. In fact

2. The polls were wrong about Clinton’s support! While the polls were right about Obama’s level of support the polls underestimated Clinton’s support. This occurred on multiple levels. Polls underestimated the Clinton GOTV machine particularly in her strongholds.
Rasmussen notes:

Another possibility is that the polls simply understated Clinton’s support. At one level, Clinton’s campaign organization may have been great at getting out the vote. One analyst noted that “The Clinton turnout operation in Manchester their strongest area, was very good, and turnout soared 33% over 2000. In Rochester-Dover-Somersworth, another strong Clinton area, turnout was up 94% from 2000.”

3. The Polls were right. The Pollsters were wrong. Many pollsters are now coming out of the woodwork to admit that there was in fact evidence showing Clinton was gaining on Obama. Todd Beeton from Mydd pointed this out. :

Yes, Hillary Clinton’s win last night was a shocker but it’s not as though the signs weren’t there that the tide was turning. As I wrote yesterday, the Zogby and Suffolk University daily tracking polls, while not showing a stall in Obama’s support, did show a halting of Clinton’s slide in New Hampshire. Specifically, it appeared to me that this was due to a particularly strong Monday, leading me to suspect a “tighter than expected race.”

…

In other words, when Monday was added to the polling time frame, Clinton gained 3 points on Obama, a huge impact for just one day out of the 3 polled to have. The reason it was so well hidden within the polling at large is that all of the polls were rolling averages of 2 or 3 days, thus diluting the sudden shift that took place toward Clinton.

Particularly John Zogby noted a surge for Clinton but failed to report it:

My polling showed Clinton doing well on the late Sunday night and all day Monday – she was in a 2-point race in that portion of the polling. But since our methods call for a three-day rolling average, we had to legitimately factor the huge Obama numbers on Friday and Saturday – thus his 12 point average lead. Unfortunately, one day or a day-and-a-half does not make a trend and we ran out of time.

Furthermore, the polls did indicate that women were trending heavily towards Clinton. In all their Obamania pollsters simply “missed it” as John Zogby continues.

Also worth noting. Many people cited the weather and increased turnout being reported as good signs for the Obama campaign. However many Monday Morning Quarterbacks are hypothesizing that good weather likely encouraged elderly women to come out and vote. Eldery women are a demographic Clinton won overwhelmingly.

4. Clinton picked up the Biden/Dodd voters. Time magazine’s blog Swampland notes:

So a social scientist friend of a colleague here has run some comparisons into the pre-election polls and the actual turnout to see if there were signs of a so-called “black tax” in New Hampshire — the phenomenon familiar to students of the Harvey Gant-Jesse Helms races in North Carolina. He didn’t find any evidence that white respondents who were telling pollsters they planned to vote for Obama did not. What he found, instead, is that a certain percentage of Democratic voters in the last days of polling presumed Biden (especially) and (to a lesser degree) Dodd hadn’t dropped out. By and large, come election day, those Biden and Dodd supporters ended up casting ballots for Hillary.

This makes sense. Both Dodd and Biden ran as the “experience” alternatives to Clinton. With the two of them dropping out the majority of those voters went to Clinton.

5. 40% of voters were undecided leading up to the election! Not only were there large amounts of undecided voters, the vast majority of the undecideds voted for Clinton. Rasmussen points out:

Further support for this theory comes from Exit Poll data showing that an astonishing 38% of voters made up their mind in the final three days of the race (after Iowa). Of these, more than a third ended up voting for Clinton. These last minute decisions gave Clinton 14% of the vote overall (more than a third of her total vote). It’s easy to imagine that many of these voters had been leaning towards Clinton before Iowa, were impressed by Obama during his weekend “wave,” but came back to Clinton by Election Day.

In fact, John Zogby pointed out that 18% of voters were undecided on election day! A number he calls unprecedented.

6. Pollsters stopped polling: All polls going into New Hampshire represented public opinion throughout Sunday. There’s nothing odd about this. Polls typically lag by a day. The problem is that polls literally STOPPED POLLING on Monday.

In Rasmussen Reports polling, our final trend was in Clinton’s direction—our tracking poll showed Obama’s lead declining from 10-points following the Sunday interviews to seven points after the Monday night calls. Extrapolating that trend another day would have pointed to a much closer race. Additionally, the Rasmussen Reports surveys showed that Clinton supporters were somewhat more certain that they would stick with their candidate than supporters of Obama or Edwards. If this is the case, why didn’t the late trend get more notice? Perhaps because few other firms polled on Monday night. So, the last polls reported by many continued to show an uptick for Obama.

7. Clinton divided Obama’s base of Young voters Per Politico:

While Democratic Iowa caucus-goers under 30 went strongly for Obama, who got 57 percent of their votes, according to CNN entrance polls, New Hampshire’s young people were decidedly divided.

Obama easily beat Clinton among 18- to 24-year-olds in New Hampshire, 60 percent to 27 percent. But Clinton surprised observers by actually edging out Obama among 25- to 29-year-olds, 37 percent to 35 percent.

Her edge among voters between 25 and 29 was a crucial component of her 39 percent to 37 percent victory.

8. Little known fact. Independant turn out was lower than in 2004. However, democrat turnout was record high. This is particularly good for Clinton as she handily beat Barack Obama capturing dem support in the mid 40’s as compared to his in the low 30’s.

9. A hypothesis going around: With the democratic race seemingly over, independants decided to vote in the Republican race for McCain.

10. Exit polls once tallied showed the race tied 39%-39% . Per Politico