A French Bradley effect?

Posted By Joshua Keating Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 2:21 PM Share

U.S. political junkes are well aware of the "Bradley effect," a scenario in which embarassed white voters tell pollsters they're planning on voting for a minority candidate, then vote for a white one when they get in the booth, producing misleading results.

The Bradley effect turned out to be a non-factor in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, but Le Monde suggests [French] it may have appeared in a somewhat mutated form in France's regional elections this week, where Jean-Marie Le Pen's anti-immigrant National Front performed much better than pollsters expected, taking third place with 11.7 of the vote and likely contributing to an embarassing first-round defeat for Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling conservatives. French pollsters now suggest that a portion of the FN's electorate may have been embarassed to admit to supporting Le Pen's radical views. 

Logically, a Bradley effect would only be an issue in countries where racial prejudice is widespread enough in influence the result of an election, but taboo enough that citizens are embarassed to admit to it, even in an anonymous poll. It would be interesting to find out how many countries this applies to.

Do readers know of any other countries which have had Bradley-type election results?

(Hat tip: The Monkey Cage)

ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:ELECTIONS, FRANCE, RACE/ETHNICITY
 

KARL

3:09 PM ET

March 16, 2010

Bradley effect

The Swiss referendum on minarets late last year polled about 53% against the ban, but the vote was 57% for -- a 10 point swing.

 

KRYPTER

3:26 PM ET

March 16, 2010

Fight Islamism

I'll gladly vote for any party that stands against Islamism here in Canada, though I don't think my compatriots share my views. Parties here are generally not focused on a single issue.

 

BOOKFISHER

7:17 PM ET

March 16, 2010

Denmark

The pollster always underestimates the nationalist party, Danish Peopleparty, at elections, usually around 1 percent point

 

ASANDERS28

8:20 PM ET

March 16, 2010

Bradley effect wasn't proven for Bradley!

Please note that the Bradley effect was even not provable as a real phenomenon for Mayor Bradley. What a politician is really saying when they bring up a non-scientific,mentally lazy reason for a political loss is that they have been too busy to really understand what the electorate was thinking and instead relied upon 3rd and 4th party sources to determine the "truth".

 

BLUE13326

8:00 AM ET

March 17, 2010

You are making a huge causal

You are making a huge causal leap that is logically invalid. It was never proven that racism is responsible for the Bradley effect (which, as above, was largely a myth).

Just because one chooses not to vote for a minority candidate does not make one racist.

 

GRAYGHOST

1:02 PM ET

March 17, 2010

Your argument is full of

Your argument is full of holes. You write:

"Logically, a Bradley effect would only be an issue in countries where racial prejudice is widespread enough in [to] influence the result of an election, but taboo enough that citizens are embar[r]assed to admit to it . . . "

1. To be against your country being taken over by creeping Islamism does not make you a racist, or guilty of "racial prejudice."

2. There are many reasons why respondents might not want to identify themselves with Le Pen to pollsters. They might be embarrassed by his racism, or his other off-the-wall behavior - but still believe that his party is most likely to take firm action on immigration. They might also think that a vote for the National Front will shock the mainstream parties into taking more action - an extremely "logical" belief, as this has happened in other countries like Denmark.

 

BLACKSHYLD

9:48 PM ET

March 21, 2010

Islamism?

Islamism? Meh, not as amusing as "Islamo-fascism".

Xenophobes always seems to come up with new, albeit less creative was to label those they fear and distrust. What is it with you people? What ever happened to Tolerance and Freedom of Religion? Does being a Muslim automatically make one an enemy of the state that should be viewed with suspicion and denied basic civil liberties?

What makes such prejudices against Muslims any less disgraceful than those against Jews in Europe, Aboriginals/Native Americans, Blacks or any other minority for that matter? These "nationalist" folk aren't much better than Neo Nazis or the Klu Klux Klan.

 

KARL

2:03 PM ET

March 17, 2010

Bradley effect

A few of your readers don't quite understand Bradley Effect. It's not about racist voters, it's about voters who -- for any reason (including fear of being thought racist) -- deceive pollsters about their intentions. Their motives are immaterial, all that makes for the effect is a significant discrepancy between reliable polls and the vote total. Race is thought to be factor because the phenomenon has been seen in several race-related elections since Bradley's. The irony is that, as noted above, there is good reason to think that Bradley himself was not a victim of his eponymous effect.

For a famous non-racial poll disparity look at Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate race: she led in the Monday polls by 4% but won by 12%.

 

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