Donald Trump and the 'Bradley Effect'

David Graham on Donald Trump's increasingly racist reelection effort:

While it’s true that a lot of the media coverage made a Clinton victory seem like a foregone conclusion, there were warning signs of her weaknesses for some time, and Biden is already doing better on several of those fronts. The presumptive Democratic nominee holds a larger lead, and a more consistent one, and he’s eating into Trump’s edge in key demographics including white voters and older voters.

The reason for this, as I wrote last week, is that voters are horrified by Trump’s handling of race issues and of protests. The president’s unfavorability rating remains high, though within its normal range, and voters still give him high marks on the economy, but there’s been an immense shift in opinion on race. White voters have changed their minds, and they’re no longer with the president—but he’s sticking to the same talking points.

I wonder if we're seeing an inversion of the "Bradley Effect" here.

The Bradley Effect is a phenomenon in which black politicians underperform their polling when voters actually cast their votes. The idea is that white voters tell pollsters they'll vote for the black candidate because they don't want to look racist but maybe are secretly a little bit racist when they go into the voting booth.

The idea is that racism and discomfort with racism can coexist in the same person. (We're large, we contain multitudes.) Republicans have exploited that discrepancy over the years by running meta-campaigns on crime and welfare while studiously avoiding going full N-word. As long as there was a plausibly non-racist explanation for a Republican candidate's position, the GOP got the benefit of the doubt. Voters could vote for the Willie Horton ad guy and still feel OK about themselves.

Donald Trump is a blunt object, though, given to saying the quiet part loud. Voters who might support a subtly racist candidate can do so and tell themselves that they're not supporting a racist candidate. But Trump is, increasingly, foreclosing that option to those voters. He is plainly trying to divide America along racial lines, defending the Confederate flag and racist team names, praising "Manifest Destiny," even going after NASCAR's one black driver -- and all of this in the last 24 hours. Voters who can look past somewhat subtle expressions of racism are finding that Trump's expressions aren't all that subtle anymore. They don't like it. And so Trump is failing.

Then again, if the Bradley Effect possibility holds, it could be that voters are telling pollsters they don't like Trump and his racism -- but will give him their support in the privacy of the voting booth. There's only one way we'll find out.