View this email in your browser

**OCTOBER 30, 2020**

Kuttner on TAP

Will There Be a Bradley Effect on Election Day?

****

The Bradley Effect is named for former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an
African American. When he ran for governor of California in 1982,
Bradley was leading in the polls on Election Day, but narrowly lost to
Republican George Deukmejian.

Bill Roberts, Deukmejian's campaign manager, had predicted that about
5 percent of voters who had told pollsters they would vote for Bradley
would change their minds based on his race. Political scientists
studying the Bradley Effect concluded that it was real-with a median
gap of 3.1 percentage points in elections before 1996.

After Bradley's loss, some other African American candidates who
appeared to be leading were defeated, especially when their opponents
played the race card, though several others narrowly won. The ultimate
refutation of the Bradley Effect, of course, was Barack Obama's
election as president in 2008. Any late-breaking loss of white support
was more than offset by a wave of Black turnout.

In the Trump era, with the president of the United States fomenting
racial hatred, is the Bradley Effect alive and well?

We will get a test of this in three Senate races. In South Carolina,
Democrat Jaime Harrison, who is African American, is giving an
unexpectedly close challenge to incumbent Lindsey Graham. This is a
state whose other senator, Tim Scott, is a Black Republican, so maybe
South Carolina is less racist than it once was.

And in Georgia, which has been trending Democratic, in one contest
Raphael Warnock, an African American pastor, is narrowly favored to win
a seat held by Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to fill a vacancy. In
the other, Jon Ossoff, who is Jewish, is in a virtual tie with badly
blemished incumbent David Perdue. (In some parts of Georgia, the word
"Jew" is pronounced with two syllables, and anti-Semitism can have its
own Bradley Effect.)

A further factor is that Biden's running mate is Kamala Harris. Though
Harris has not been highly visible lately, it may give some voters pause
that a Black woman is in line to succeed a 77-year-old presumptive
president.

In 2008, it appeared that America was at last moving beyond race. That
proved premature. In 2020, the second best is a massive turnout of Black
voters and other Americans of goodwill.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

[link removed]

Undoing Prop 13

California's 1978 ballot measure ushered in the era of inadequate
government and kicked off the state's decline. Voters may finally be
ready to repeal it. BY HAROLD MEYERSON

Wall Street's Biggest Supporter Could Lose Her House Seat

Ann Wagner, a senior Republican on the House Financial Services
Committee, is in danger of losing a seat in suburban St. Louis, despite
millions in bank donations. BY DAVID DAYEN

Can the Senate Six Beat Voter Suppression and Democratic Disinvestment?

The results among Black Democratic candidates in the South may provide
fresh clues about the direction of the party and the country. BY
GABRIELLE GURLEY

Retrying the Chicago Seven

Sorkin's film plays fast and loose with characters and facts, but he
got one thing right. BY TODD GITLIN

Unsanitized, Election Edition: The One-State Election and the Vote Theft
Gambit

Also, not enough doses of the therapy that could prevent coronavirus
hospitalization. This is The Election 2020 Daily Report for October 30,
2020. BY DAVID DAYEN

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Copyright (C) 2020 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States