Notre Dame Prof. May Know Why Polling Is So Inaccurate

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(SOUTH BEND) - A Notre Dame political scientist has been named to a team of pollsters investigating how the polls have gone wrong this year.

The polls universally predicted a comfortable win for Barack Obama in New Hampshire. Instead, Hillary Clinton posted a victory which at the time revived her campaign.

New Hampshire was the worst polling blunder of the campaign, but there have been others, including John McCain's narrower-than-expected win over Mitt Romney in the California primary.

Polls have been wrong before, but this time, the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers is looking into why. Notre Dame's Darren Davis says with so many pollsters setting up shop, there's greater scrutiny, and with it a greater need to ensure the polls are measuring opinions accurately.

Davis says one explanation for this year's errors may be the so-called "Tom Bradley Effect," named for the former Los Angeles mayor who lost a race for governor many expected he would win.

That theory holds polls may overestimate an African-American candidate's support, because people want to give politically correct answers. Davis says the same thing may happen with a woman running.

But Davis says pollsters also need to look at how they identify "likely voters" and how they classify the undecided. AAPOR hopes to release preliminary findings by the end of next month, just in time for Indiana'S May 6 primary.

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