Barack Obama wins popular vote. McCain wins electoral college and Presidency

I am 100% sure that Barack Obama will win the popular vote but John McCain will win the electoral college and the Presidency. Everyone is playing up the poll numbers and Barack Obama's lead in those polls as if they are devastating news to John McCain. They are not. Polls are very inaccurate. One can see how inaccurate polls are just by looking at how none of them agree. In addition to the inherent inaccuracies in polls there is the way that the issue of race skews the accuracy of polls even further.

The first issue of race effecting polls is the Bradley effect and the reverse Bradley effect. The Bradley effect, as it is called, is a way to describe how when an African-American is running against a white opponent, the poll numbers sometimes do not match the actual vote totals. Basically it is hypothesized that white voters say they will vote for the African-American candidate or that they are undecided and then vote for the white candidate which was their intention all along. Some say this might be because white voters fell uneasy answering the question of who they will vote for because it might be seen as a racial decision. To avoid the appearance of racism these voters say they will vote for the African-American candidate or say they are undecided, when they have already made up their mind to vote for the white candidate, just to avoid the question. The reverse Bradley effect is used to explain why some African-American candidates poll lower and then get more votes in the final election. This hypothesis is based on the idea that pollsters are not polling enough African-Americans or young voters.

There are some who believe in the Bradley effect(Fred Barnes), some that do not(McCamy Taylor), and some that do but think it is no longer relevant such as Nate Silver and Dan Hopkins.

RealClearPolitics Poll Averages

General Election: McCain vs. Obama

Poll	Obama (D)	McCain (R)
RCP Average	49.0	43.9
Gallup Tracking	52	41
Rasmussen Tracking	51	45
Reuters/CSpan/Zogby Tracking	47	45
Hotline/FD Tracking	45	44
GW/Battleground Tracking	49	45
Ipsos/McClatchy	47	40
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl	49	43
CBS News	48	45
CNN	53	45
Democracy Corps (D)	49	46

More Polling Data | Chart | News

Looking at these up-to-date poll numbers one can see that they are all different and most are close. The biggest lead for Obama is eleven points on one poll and only one point on another poll. First I would like to point out that four of these polls are within the margin of error. Second we must add in the Bradley effect, if anything like that actually exists, to see the effect it may have. For this exercise let us believe that the Bradley effect is real and the percentage of which it effects the polls is 5%, which would be a mild Bradley effect compared to the double digit swings that have happened in the past. If true, the Bradley effect would give John McCain the lead in five of these national polls while Obama would retain a lead in the five others. Sounds pretty close to me? The Bradley effect makes this race a dead heat but does anything like the Bradley effect really exist?

Yes, it does. But it is not the Bradley effect that will change this election. It is how race effects an election as a whole that will change this election, especially a national election which cuts across so many different regions of the country. Race is playing a huge role in the election but most people are treating it like the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Barack Obama's own advisers believe that race effects this election because they have crafted his image and his responses so they do not offend the white majority. There is a fear that he would be portrayed as the "angry black man" if he ever loses his temper in public. Other Democrats have played the race card as well when they have rebuffed some criticisms of Obama as being racially motivated. Race is everywhere in this election and it will be a deciding factor in this election.

Racism and reverse racism will be a factor in this election. It is unfortunate but there are still a number of people in this country who will not vote for an African-American candidate(racism). On the other end of the spectrum, I have talked to white friends who are thinking about voting for Obama because he is black(reverse racism). When I questioned them about why they were going to do that, I was told that they thought, if Obama was elected, that it might heal some of the racial wounds our country suffers from. This is a noble idea but it is still racism to pick a candidate solely on the color of their skin. We can not avoid the truth that there are people in this country who will decide to vote for or against a candidate strictly because of the color of their skin. This being the first national election to pit an African-American candidate against a white candidate, and a very close competition, it will be decided by those who cast their vote on race alone. This is not the Bradley effect. The Bradley effect is someone hiding their vote because of the issue of race. My contention is that these people will vote because of race. I believe that there are a lot more people out there who will cast their vote due to racism(against Obama) rather than what I call reverse-racism(for Obama). That is why I am 100% sure that Barack Obama will win the popular vote by a small margin but John McCain will win the electoral college and the Presidency. If Obama was exactly the same in every way except for being white instead of black, this presidential race would already be over and he would win by a landslide.