While the polls in PA certainly look promising, with Obama making up a 20+ point deficit in a little over a month, I worry that the pre-polling numbers may not reflect the actual results tomorrow because of the Bradley effect. For those of you unfamiliar, I've provided information about the Bradley Effect below. Do you think this phenomenon will come into play?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effectThe term Bradley effect or Wilder effect refers to an explanation advanced as the possible cause of a phenomenon which has led to inaccurate voter opinion polls in some American political campaigns between a white candidate and a non-white candidate. Specifically, there have been instances in which such elections have seen the non-white candidate significantly underperform with respect to the results predicted by pre-election polls. Researchers who have studied the issue theorize that some white voters gave inaccurate polling responses because of a fear that by stating their true preference, they might appear to others to be racially prejudiced.
The theory suggests that statistically significant numbers of white voters tell pollsters in advance of an election that they are either undecided, or likely to vote for the non-white candidate, but that those voters exhibit a different behavior when actually casting their ballots. White voters who said that they were undecided break in statistically large numbers toward the white candidate, and many of the white voters who said that they were likely to vote for the non-white candidate ultimately cast their ballot for the white candidate. This reluctance to give accurate polling answers has sometimes extended to post-election exit polls as well.
Some research has suggested that the race of the pollster conducting the interview may factor into that concern. Meanwhile, some pollsters express doubt altogether that deliberately false answers from white voters being polled has been the cause of the polling errors in question. At least one prominent researcher has suggested that with regard to pre-election polls, the discrepancy can be traced in part by the polls' failure to account for general conservative political leanings among late-deciding voters.
Origin
The original term Bradley effect derives its name from a 1982 campaign involving Tom Bradley, the long-time mayor of Los Angeles, California. Bradley, who was black, ran as the Democratic party's candidate for Governor of California against Republican candidate George Deukmejian, who was white. The polls leading into the day of the election consistently showed Bradley with a lead. In fact, based on exit polls on election day, a number of media outlets projected a Bradley win that night; early editions of the next day's San Francisco Chronicle featured a headline proclaiming "BRADLEY WIN PROJECTED". However, Bradley narrowly lost the race. Post-election research indicated that a smaller percentage of white voters actually voted for Bradley than polls had predicted, and that voters who had been classified by those polls as "undecided" had gone to Deukmejian in statistically anomalous numbers.