• Home
• About The Center »
  • Introduction
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • News
  • Leadership Council
  • Partner Organizations
  • CSD Administrative Staff
• Events »
  • Events Calendar
  • Annual Lecture Series
    • Peltason Lecture
    • Eckstein Lecture
    • Economics of Governance Lecture
    • Williams Lecture
    • Religion, Media, and Politics Lecture
  • Photos
  • Conferences
• Research and Publications »
  • Research »
    • Research Emphases
    • Faculty Research Projects
    • Conferences
    • Visiting Research Fellows
    • International Exchange
  • Publications »
    • Paper Series
    • Books
    • Newsletters
    • Email Subscription
  • Research Sources »
    • Virtual Library on Democracy
    • CSD Data Archive
    • Asia Data Archive
    • Campus Phonebook
• Graduate Fellowships »
  • Democracy Fellows
  • Courses
  • Become a Fellow
  • Funding
  • Fellow Distinctions
  • Fellow Placements
• Friends of the Center »
  • Become a Friend of the Center
  • Special Dinner Events
• Visiting Research Fellows
• International Exchange

CSD Home > About the Center > News > News Details

News Details:

Title: CSD fellows Stout & Kline get national attention for "Bradley effect" study

Date Entered: 2008-10-30  Details: The work of CSD Democracy Fellows in political science, Christopher Stout and Reuben Kline, on the "Bradley Effect," has been attracting national attention after having been reported in a story that went out over the AP newswire. Their views about the potential continued importance of the "Bradley effect" (unwillingness of white Democratic voters to publicly admit to not supporting for a black nominee of their party), research they presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association over Labor Day weekend, is contrasted with that of other scholars such as Daniel Hopkins, a lecturer at Harvard University, whose research suggests that until the mid-1990s black candidates consistently performed roughly 3 percentage points below what pre-election polls predicted; but that after 1996 the Bradley effect disappeared.     Below we quote from the wire service story.     "According to Hopkins, the change came after two racially charged issues crime and welfare receded as top campaign issues. Hopkins said the focus of the presidential race would have to become much more racially charged than it has been for the Bradley effect to re-emerge. "Has race been talked about in this election? Absolutely," Hopkins said. "But is the election being fought on racialized issues? No."     Not so fast, say other researchers. Christopher Stout and Rueben Kline, a pair of doctorate candidates at the University of California-Irvine, looked at similar election data and concluded the Bradley effect indeed is still alive. It only seems less pronounced in recent years, they say, because there have been fewer closely competitive races with African-American candidates and in noncompetitive elections, poll respondents are more likely to say they are backing the leading candidate, regardless of race.     Stout and Kline, and some others, say that in close battleground states such as Ohio and Florida, the Bradley effect could indeed be a factor this year."