http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2916
By Eugene Robinson
Pollsters and pundits were quick to discount http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2893’s narrow loss to Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary. Given that the same pollsters and pundits (OK, me too) were so wrong about the outcome, I think we ought to take a closer look.
The phenomenon is named after the late Tom Bradley, who in 1982 seemed certain to become the first black governor of California. Pre-election polls showed Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles, with a double-digit lead over his white opponent, George Deukmejian. But Bradley lost.
Subsequently, several high-profile races involving black candidates followed the same pattern in which apparent leads somehow evaporated on Election Day. The polls said David Dinkins would beat Rudy Giuliani by more than 10 points in the 1989 New York mayoral race; Dinkins ended up winning with 50 percent of the vote to Giuliani’s 48 percent. That same year, the polls gave Douglas Wilder an 11-point lead over Marshall Coleman in the Virginia governor’s race; Wilder squeaked into office by less than half a percentage point. In 1990, the polls said Harvey Gantt would handily defeat incumbent North Carolina senator Jesse Helms; Gantt lost, and it wasn’t even close.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/on_the_lookout_for_the_bradley.html