Pollster.com

If anything McCain better be worried about a reverse Bradley effect. There are lots of Repubs who want to vote for Obama and will, but can't say so in front of their friends and family. I have seen and heard about this numerous times. It makes you wonder if there is enough of this out there to make a difference for McCain in the voting booth.

I always believed the stereotype of late deciding voters saying that these late undecideds would vote for McCain, the conservative candidate, because it would be a safe choice. Thats just not true.

mj1

Yes. My parents are Republican voters in FL - they hang out at the country club all day and all of their friends are Republicans. They both constantly forward me anti-Obama emails sent by their friends and are always spewing off GOP talking points to see what I think.

They both voted for Obama.

Yeah, my father (78) is a lifelong Repub.(since Eisenhower) in deep red state of the South, and would probably never tell anyone but family...but he voted Obama, too... just can't stomach McCain.

I wonder how many such people are out there... maybe as many as those who will vote McCain just because they can't get past the color barrier.

So... the NH results *were* the result of the Bradley Effect? Because per Professor Franklin's analysis, Obama did get what we saw in the polls - but the undecideds all broke for Clinton.
Hm.

On the bright side, at least today, Obama breaks 50% in NH (yes!), CO, VA, IA, NM, PA and even NV (barely) - which should be enough for 270 even without PA. Keep an eye on MO, FL and NC (Obama under 50)... and the others as well, of course. Particularly PA (after that Mason-Dixon poll this morning).

My mother-in-law and parents too, all voted Bush in '00 and '04. (Not my father-in-law; can't stand Palin, but has always been a staunch Repub and in particular a McCain fan, even though he's very disappointed in his campaign.) I just about fell over backward. My gut tells me it won't be a big factor overall, but sure does make for interesting anecdotes.

last weekend i went with some friends to see "W". we live in a very Republican county in Southern California. we expected an empty theatre. it was packed. and as i looked out over the crowd, i saw a SEA of white hair.

i believe that Republicans who are old enough to remember what true conservative values are, are not fooled by the Neoconservative bait-and-switch that has been perpetrated within their own party. i believe that these people can take a quick look at how the Neocons have run the U.S. economy into the ground, misused our military, trampled all over the Constitution, and grown a massive government defecit, and see clearly that something is very wrong.

i just don't understand why more Republicans are not outraged at the Neoconservative takeover of their party.

i have a lot of respect for true conservatives even though i disagree with them on a lot of points, especially regarding social values, such as gay marriage and abortion. there are many points of agreement between Progressives and Conservatives, especially when it comes to respect for the Constitution and privacy matters.

i have absolutely no use for Neoconservatives and neither do THINKING Republicans.

my 72-year old father and stepmother live in a country club-style retirement community in Arizona. they are both voting for Obama.

More evidence of a possible reverse Bradley effect:

In Atlanta, GA, a Republican white woman working for the Obama campaign was quoted in the Atlanta Journal recently. I can't find the quote but she said several of her friends have told her something like: "I am voting for Obama but don't tell anyone, especially not my husband."

RS,

That Mason Dixon poll is one of only two polls of Pennsylvania in the entire month of October that had Obama at less than 50% (the other one was a Susquehanna poll from more than two weeks ago). It should take more than one poll to say that Greener's thesis (see the column) applies here (if it weren't bunk anyway.)

@Steven J Berke:
All I am saying is keep an eye on PA. Maybe I should have included my latest mantra:
The M-D poll means we can either freak out, or work harder. I choose Door 2.

[I am in CO, not in PA, so folks in PA... GOTV!]

I know it's anecdotal, but my parents are also two lifelong Republicans who voted for Obama. My mom actually bought and read Obama's book, then decided to vote for him (she read McCain's book as well). My dad's vote *really* surprised me, but he said McCain is a "warmonger" and that he doesn't want his grandkids being sent to the middle east. He also said he felt completely "betrayed" by George Bush and was especially upset to find that the U.S. was using torture.

As a funny aside, I was visiting them when Palin was announced and had a good laugh when the first words out of my dad's mouth were "Hillary will never stand for this!"

My grandmother voted for Reagan, Bush, Bush II vs. Dukakis, and just sent her absentee ballot in for Obama. On the other hand, she also voted twice for Clinton, so perhaps the only thing this suggests is that she's a sucker for a good-looking man.

Oops: meant Bush I vs. Dukakis and Bush II twice.

Here is the other side of that coin. My wife and I are volunteering for Obama this weekend and are really charged up about the campaign. I have been to Kuwait and Iraq and seen how the US action is percieved in that part of the world and that is my primary driver for voting Obama, but I am onboard with his other platforms as well.

BUT we cannot for the life of us manage to get my wife's parents and grandparents to vote for the Democratic ticket. They are values voters in the Hoosier state, and would vote for the pro-life candidate even if he was playing a fiddle while the country burned!

Unless of course it's hidden.

Any Republican who would vote for a baby-killing, tax and spend liberal is not really a Republican. Maybe they are Libertarians, but not Republicans.

@rubyinparaise- "last weekend i went with some friends to see "W". we live in a very Republican county in Southern California. we expected an empty theatre. it was packed. and as i looked out over the crowd, i saw a SEA of white hair."

I went and saw it as well with my wife (who is a former Republican but has now joined me as an independent). I commented to her about the demographics. It seemed like nearly everyone fell into one of two categories.

One category was 22-30 year olds- out of college, but not yet breaking thirty.

The other category was folks with white hair as you describe. The younger group either came as couples, or came with members of the older category. I'm not sure (but kind of curious) who brought who in those cases.

It was startling to see the almost absolute dearth of people between 30-60.

@RS re New Hampshire: I don't think we can really say that "the undecideds all broke for Clinton." Surely people changed their minds about whether to vote, or whom to vote for. That election was so volatile that it would be hard either to isolate a Bradley effect, or to explain it. (Lying? Ambivalence? Non-response bias?)

@RaleighNC

This is exactly why I have come to despise so many wingnuts. RaleighNC has set himself up as judge and jury as to who is a real Republican, in the same way he & his colleagues have decided who is a real American, or a real patriot. It is one of the reasons the Pubs are the incredible shrinking party.

@ RaleighNC

I have shared your sentiment almost my entire adult life-- wondering if "Reagan Democrats" were really Democrats at all... That said, perhaps "Obama Republicans" are more like "Reagan Democrats", and thus more able to see candidates for more than one issue like you. After all, the politics of don't blink/impetuousness/knee jerk reaction/non nuance nonsense/fear, are much of the reason Bush has the worst approval rating ever. So, give crossover R's more credit for finally looking for more shades of gray--something that might help you feel less angry too.

Another amazing story. Had dinner with some Americans last Sunday. One has a 95-year old mother in small town Kentucky with pictures of Reagan and *both* Bushes on her wall. Intends to vote Obama. No, I am not making this up.

All the best for next week.

Wow. Wish there was a way to better quantify all this antecdotal evidence. Like everyone else, I've been floored when I hear who has decided to vote blue. And I've got not one, not two, but five stories from assorted family and friends of either republican or generally apoltical folks breaking for Obama-Biden. In Virginia. In Louisiana. In New Mexico. This really is historic.

For what it's worth, I think you will see more 'closet Democrats' voting this year. These are the people who were and are the Reagan-type Democrats or the so-called "silent majority" who are fed up with the Republican brand, but are reticent to put an Obama sign in their yard, or even discuss the notion of voting for Obama for fear of offensive comments from feigned toughguys of the right, sustained by an underlying tone coming from the McCain campaign and the right, in general, that the Republicans have some lock on security or toughness, because they are "tough" on terror and therefore, Democrats must be "weak" on terror. No one wants to be in that group of "weaklings", do they? Not in public, anyway.

I predict a landslide electoral victory and at least a 12 point margin in the general vote for Obama.

Shaft .... am down in very conservative SW IN (Vincennes) and have, for the first time ever, volunteered for a political campaign. As to your "value voters" relations, might remind them that religious values are not the only important values one should weigh

I have a friend in Texas who has debated me for nearly six months now about what she has called the "evils" of Obama. She also voted for the guy last Friday!

There's a lot of anecdotal evidence of lifelong repubs voting for Obama on this page. But there's another flip side... I know of 3 longtime democrats who won't vote at all this election... they can't stomach voting for Obama. They would have for Clinton. Two of them are older white women.

leftofcenter...
If God is first, you MUST put Him first. So issues which side on morality MUST be first... in front of anything YOU want. Just something for you to think about... ;-)

Before the extremist religious faction merged with the party, Republicans always were pro-choice, the freedom from government interference in family matters is very much a traditional Republican/ conservative value.

And thinking Repubs certainly can see who have become the big spenders.

Some of the most conservative Repubs I know crossed over in 2004 to vote against Bush, many of them for the 1st time in their lives. It's not really about how conservative, it's about how independent-minded. Because the people who've gotten control of the party are anything but conservative.

flyingcolors
Who are "the extremist religious faction" ???

Miami Exit Poll :

US born Hispanics : Obama 72 %, McCain 28%, White Anglos : Obama 64%, McCain 36%

The exit polling of 8,683 voters leaving most of the county's early-voting sites between Oct. 20-29 was sponsored by the political science class of Associate Professor Mike Abrams at the University of Miami

Obama's Hispanic vote: Strong in Miami
SwampPolitics.com

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/10/obamas_hispanic_vote_strong_in.html

Vicente Duque

Sorry, Mark, but most of your and Charles' analysis tells us nothing about the risk of a hidden McCain vote. You are assuming that the non-responders are 'missing at random' from the general population, and hence that the statistical model which describes the respondent population is valid to describe the non-respondent population. Unfortunately this seems very unlikely to be true. The non-responders may be not responding because they are DIFFERENT to the others....

The report of no evidence for racial bias to interviewer is useful circumstantial evidence, but I see no way to establish the existence or non existence of non-random bias short of collecting more data which is unlikely to have any bias at all. This could be done perhaps via a ballot-box based survey, or a randomised respondent survey, where respondents are randomly given either an innocuous or 'loaded' question, and so are hopefully reassured that no-one can interpret their individual answer.