According to NEW YORK (AFP),Scientific surveys aimed at predicting the winner of the November 4 election are proving harder than ever, polling experts admit.
In 2000, major media US broadcasters may have helped tip the balance of an extraordinarily tight race in favor of Republican George W. Bush by announcing that he had beaten Democrat rival Al Gore in Florida.
Now, four years later, pollsters face a new and unique set of problems.
The biggest imponderable is the significance of racism in an election where Democrat Obama is bidding to be the first black president in US history.
One theory -- the so-called "Bradley-Wilder effect" -- is that people tell pollsters they support Obama because they are afraid of sounding racist.
Then in the privacy of the polling booth on November 4 they promptly opt for the white Republican candidate, McCain.
The theory took shape when a black former mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, lost the 1982 California governor's race to a white opponent, while opinion polls had pointed to victory.
A 1989 race in which the black candidate, Doug Wilder, only just squeaked through as Virginia governor, despite having been forecast to win by 10 percent, appeared to confirm the phenomenon.
Many other elections involving black candidates have not adhered to the pattern, but a presidential election puts unique pressures on voters.
"We have no idea exactly how that's going to affect the polling," Schmidt said.
Carroll Doherty, associate director at Pew Research Center, a polling agency, told AFP, "we are entering the unknown."
"The Wilder effect is one of the great issues hanging over this election that we've never encountered before."
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Obama, Clinton and the Bradley Effect:
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