When comparing the findings from The Field Poll’s final pre-election survey of likely voters (n-966) to the Edison Media Research exit poll in California, the biggest differences relate to the turnout and preferences of frequent church-goers and Catholics. The Field Poll, completed one week before the election, had Catholics voting at about their registered voter population size (24% of the electorate) with voting preferences similar to those of the overall electorate, with 44% on the Yes side. However the network exit poll shows that they accounted for 30% of the CA electorate and had 64% of them voting Yes. Regular churchgoers showed a similar movement toward the Yes side. The pre-election Field Poll showed 72% of these voters voting Yes, while the exit poll showed that 84% of them voted Yes.
The same kind of phenomenon occurred when the first same-sex marriage ban was voted in California in the March 2000 election (Prop. 22), although because of the size of its victory( 61% Yes vs. 39% No) it didn’t matter much back then. In that year The Field Poll’s final pre-election poll, also completed about one week prior to the election, had 50% of Catholics on the Yes side, and accounting for 24% of the vote. Yet, the network exit poll conducted that year by Voter News Service showed them to account for 26% of the electorate with 62% voting Yes.
My take is that polling on issues like same-sex marriage that have a direct bearing on religious doctrine can be affected in a big way in the final weekend by last minute appeals by the clergy and religious organizations.
It’s the Bradley Effect, not exhortations from the pulpit, I think. All the Beautiful People were against 8, so it became unfashionable to say one was in favor. But once in the privacy of the voting booth….
Agreed. Plus lots of Obama supporters, including blacks and Hispanics, voted yes.
Right, #2 – something over 80% of black women in CA voted yes on Prop. 8 If I knew where to re-locate that set of percentages, I would do it; anyway, that was the largest % of a group to go Yes.
Perhaps we need another term to describe this phenomenon. The Bradley Effect (which did not appear to be in play at all in terms of polling data compared to actual votes cast) refers to closet racism causing respondents to answer one way to the pollster and vote another in the voting booth. What we may have witnessed this year is a different phenomenon in which respondents answer the pollster according to what is fashionable or PC and vote their consciences in the booth.
“Perhaps we need another term to describe this phenomenon” —Jim K [#4]
The Bradley Effect, properly understood, refers to white voters’ reluctance to tell pollsters that they plan to vote against a black candidate. Those voters need not harbor any racist sentiments. It’s enough that they fear being accused of racism if they state their true intentions.
The Bradley Effect represents a form of what researchers call “social desirability bias”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_desirability_bias
Some gay activists are planning to boycott Utah (including the Sundance Film Festival) in response to Mormon Church support for the California amendment. One of them even refers to the “State of Hate.”