Could Obama's race actually help him on Election Day?

A working assumption among political junkies is that no one can predict what will happen when the country closes the voting-booth curtains on Nov. 4 and is finally forced to decide, for the first time in U.S. history, whether it's ready to support an African-American for president. That's why we're inclined to distrust predictions about the outcome of this particular election. So what if polls now show Obama ahead of McCain 353-185 on the electoral map? the thinking goes. People who've told pollsters they'll support a black candidate could back out, or a bunch of crazy unpolled racists could show up, or whatever.

The idea the pre-election surveys tend to exaggerate a black candidate's level of support is commonly known as the Bradley effect; it's named after Tom Bradley, who lost the California governorship in 1982 despite polls that had showed him in the lead. But while I don't doubt that "a small percentage of respondents would rather lie to a pollster than admit to opposing a candidate on the ground of his race," I've always suspected, at least in this particular election, that they'd be outnumbered by two groups of voters: those who support Obama in part because of his race and those who'd rather not tell a pollster they're backing a black guy--even though they are. Today, I stumbled on two new studies that support my suspicions.

The first is from the good people at Gallup. According to the firm's latest poll ...

... while 6% of voters say they are less likely to vote for Barack Obama because of his race, 9% say they are more likely to vote for him, making the impact of his race a neutral to slightly positive factor when all voters' self-reported attitudes are taken into account ... Among nonwhites in the sample, there is a net difference of 11 percentage points in Obama's favor in terms of the likelihood to vote for him because of his race. Among non-Hispanic whites in the sample, there is a slight net negative for Obama of -1 point.

In other words, 6 percent of voters say they're less likely to support for Obama because he's black. That's to be expected. But the interesting thing is that 9 percent of the same electorate--6 percent of whites and 15 percent of nonwhites--says that Obama's race makes them more likely to choose him on Election Day. So Obama ultimately gets more support--not less--because he's black.

Now, keen observers would raise a red flag at this point. Gallup's results only reflect what people are willing to say about their own racial attitudes, they'd note. Since very few Americans want to admit they're racists, the number of voters who are less likely to support Obama because he's black is probably much higher than 6 percent.

Point taken. That said, that argument could cut both ways.

Sure, it's socially unacceptable to admit that you're voting against somebody because he's black. But admitting that race is one of the reasons you're supporting a particular candidate isn't much better. No one wants to be seen as relying on race--as opposed to, say, the issues--as a basis for his or her vote. As a result, the number of voters who are more likely to support Obama because he's black is probably much higher than 9 percent. Some may be African-Americans reluctant to have their support reduced in any way to racial solidarity. Others may be whites afraid to look like they're indulging in some sort of race-based romanticism. Either way, they're people who are voting for Obama in part because he'd be America's first black president--even though they told Gallup that race didn't affect their decision. Ultimately, the number of voters opposing Obama in part because he's black may still be larger. But not, I suspect, by much.

Which is where today's second study factors in. According to psychologist Anthony Greenwald and political scientist Bethany Albertson of the University of Washington, polling during the Democratic primaries consistently understated (rather than overstated) Obama's support--and race may have played a part. As the summary of their research puts it:

Current polls of the presidential election may be underestimating Barack Obama’s support by 3 to 4 percent nationally and possibly larger margins in the Southeast and some strongly Republican states, according to University of Washington researchers.

Prior to the start of the primary season, the UW researchers thought the so-called Bradley effect would play a key role in the 2008 election ... However, they found a reverse Bradley effect in 12 primary states. In these states they found actual support for Obama exceeded pre-election polls by totals of 7 percent or more, well beyond the polls’ margins of error. These errors ranged up to 18 percent in Georgia.

Albertson and Greenwald believe the errors in the polls are being driven by social pressures that can operate when voters are contacted by telephone prior to an election ... They found that, in a few Southeast states, exit polls showed that both whites and blacks gave more votes to Obama than the pre-election polls had predicted. “If you call people on the phone today and ask who they will vote for, some will give responses influenced by what may be understood, locally, as the more desirable response," Greenwald said. "What I think is they may be undecided and experiencing social pressure which could increase their likelihood of naming the white candidate if their region or state has a history of white dominance. They also might give the name of the Republican if the state is strongly Republican."

It's a fascinating hypothesis: in some parts of the country, Obama's race makes admitting that you support him the less desirable response. (The Bradley effect assumes that it's the more desirable response.) Nate Silver has more:

Recall that the Bradley Effect phenomenon describes covert rather than overt manifestations of racism. It may be that in the Northeast, which is arguably the most "politically correct" region of the country, expressions of racism are the least socially acceptable, and that therefore some people may misstate their intentions to pollsters. By contrast, in the South and the Midwest, if people are racist they will usually be pretty open about it, and in the West, which is nation's most multicultural region, there may be relatively little racism, either expressed or implicit.

The good news for Barack Obama is that, among the Northeastern states, only New Hampshire appears to be competitive--and Obama would gladly trade a Bradley Effect in New Hampshire for a reverse Bradley Effect in a state like North Carolina. (Pennsylvania, it should be noted, is also defined by the Census Bureau as being in the Northeast, but in terms of political demography, it shares far more in common with the Midwest).

Who knows if these findings--which derive from Democratic primary results--will apply to the broader electorate. Still, it isn't difficult to imagine a scenario in which a Hillary Clinton supporter in a relatively Republican swing region is reluctant to admit that she favors Obama but eventually ends up voting for him on Election Day. In fact, George Packer provides a glimpse of just such a situation in his latest New Yorker story. Reporting from Glouster--"a coal-mining town with a population of fewer than two thousand (and falling) [that] lies hidden amid the gentle slopes and thick woods of southeastern Ohio’s Appalachian hills"--Packer recounts his conversation with a pair of former Clintonites. When one, Jennice, says, "I don’t know anyone who’s for Obama,” the other, an elderly teacher named Marcella, interrupts. “If they are, they don’t say it, because it would be unpopular,” she explains, adding that the same "had not been true of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry." Later, Packer follows an Obama organizer to a meeting with some reluctant local Democrats:

Gwinn asked for volunteers to make phone calls and go door to door. There were not many takers. “Local validators are very important,” she said, with urgency. “A lot of people are secretly for Barack, but they’re afraid to go public. You know everyone in this town. So if there’s anybody out there with misinformation, you have to find them and say, ‘It’s not true. He’s not a Muslim.’ ” Seeing an Obama sign in a neighbor’s yard could make a huge difference in a place like Glouster, she said.

Ultimately, it's impossible to attribute Greenwald and Albertson's "Reverse Bradley effect"--the fact that actual Election Day support for Obama exceeded pre-election polls by totals of 7 percent or more in a dozen Democratic primary states--to voters who were "afraid to go public" before Election Day. It's just as plausible, for example, that Obama simply turned out more voters--black voters, young voters, etc.--than pollsters had predicted. But the fact remains that Obama has a history of outperforming the polls, especially in potential swing states like Indiana, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri. Given the size of Obama's field organization and the recent gains in Democratic registrations, the senator seems poised to amass a lot of votes on Election Day from people who either a.) vote for him in part because he's black (even though they're unwilling to admit it), b.) vote for him even though they're unwilling to admit it (in part because he's black) or c.) vote for him even though they've never voted before--more votes, I suspect, than he's going to forfeit because of the color of his skin. In other words, Obama could still lose this election. But his race won't be to blame. In fact, it could wind up helping him do better than the polls predict.