In politics there is a phenomenon called the Bradley Effect, named for an African American politician named Tom Bradley, a long-time mayor of Los Angeles.
Bradley was an effective and popular mayor who ran for governor of California, and with a powerful political base in crucial areas of Los Angeles he seemed poised to win. In survey after survey voters told pollsters and researchers he was their favourite candidate. It seemed in the bag for Bradley until election day. When he lost badly.
Though voters had said they would vote for a candidate of colour, when they got to voting stations they did not.
The term has come to describe the process whereby people are embarrassed to admit they are not going to vote for a candidate (in this case largely because of racial prejudice), so they tell people they are going to vote for them and then don’t. It has been seen in multiple elections in different countries.
Academics have built on this by coming up with the idea of the reverse Bradley Effect. In this case the opposite happens. When people are embarrassed that they are going to vote for a candidate they suspect is socially unacceptable, they deny that they are going to vote for them. But then they do.
The most recent example of the reverse Bradly Effect in action was that of Donald Trump. In 2016 and 2024 polls underestimated support for him, and many observers cited the phenomenon as a reason why some voters lied to pollsters.
In the UK, traditionally Labour-voting areas have often exhibited the reverse Bradley Effect, when voters who had grown up supporting Labour felt self-conscious about admitting that they planned to vote for their traditional foe, the Conservatives.
While all of this may seem a bit nerdy, irrelevant and all about countries far from the one in which we live, the opposite may be true.
At first the DA’s selection of Helen Zille as its mayoral candidate for Johannesburg seemed to me doomed, especially when a black friend (like me, a long-time and disappointed ANC supporter) said: “I would like to vote for the DA. If they would let me.”
Decades of voter research and election results show that the DA has struggled to secure meaningful support among black voters in South Africa, particularly in major metropolitan areas such as Johannesburg. Surveys indicate that the DA is widely perceived — fairly or not — as a party that does not fully represent the lived experiences, historical memory or economic priorities of the black majority.
While many black voters may publicly insist they will not vote for the DA — whether out of identity, habit or social expectation — the deepening crisis of governance under the ANC may be quietly changing private calculations.
While the party has over time made incremental gains among voters of colour, those gains have been limited and fragile. In Johannesburg specifically, voting patterns have consistently shown the ANC dominating majority black wards even as service delivery failures, corruption and municipal collapse have mounted.
Publicly, many black voters still describe the DA as “not for people like us”, reinforcing the idea that open identification with the party carries social and cultural discomfort.
Surveys now indicate that none of this is about to change. They indicate that the relationship between the DA and voters of colour is not in good shape and that Zille will struggle to win the votes needed to take control of the region.
But this could be where the reverse Bradely Effect comes in. While many black voters may publicly insist they will not vote for the DA — whether out of identity, habit or social expectation — the deepening crisis of governance under the ANC may be quietly changing private calculations.
Chronic power failures, collapsing infrastructure, water shortages and administrative paralysis have eroded confidence in the city’s leadership. In such an environment it is plausible that some voters of colour will do what Bradley Effect voters once did in reverse: say one thing and do another.
Chronic power failures, collapsing infrastructure, water shortages and administrative paralysis have eroded confidence in the city’s leadership.
They may well deny any intention of supporting the DA, even to friends or pollsters, yet ultimately cast a DA ballot out of frustration, pragmatism or resignation. If that happens, polling and public sentiment could once again fail to capture what only the ballot box ultimately reveals.
There are already by-election data points — imperfect but suggestive — that hint at how voter behaviour could shift faster than public opinion admits. Despite researchers not picking up any change in sentiment vocalised by voters, recently in Gauteng the DA has not only held ground in Johannesburg but in some wards has dramatically increased its share of the vote.
For example, the party’s support in Johannesburg ward 90 rose from 64.51% in 2024 to 97.18% in last year’s by-election, a striking consolidation of the anti-ANC vote in that ward. A similar win was recorded in April in Johannesburg ward 99.
Winning by-elections
More politically interesting, though, are by-elections outside the DA’s traditional comfort zones: in eMalahleni ward 26 (Mpumalanga) the DA flipped a seat from the ANC, with DA statements explicitly framing the result as coming from “diverse communities” — the kind of language parties reach for when they believe support is broadening beyond their core.
The same report noted that in a Mamelodi by-election (a largely black area of Tshwane), DA support “grew by 87.6%”. (The growth claim still needs ward-level Independent Electoral Commission detail to interpret fully, but it does signal momentum even off a low base.)
Taken together, these results don’t “prove” a realignment — turnout is often low in by-elections and wards can be demographically specific — but they do offer a plausible preview of the dynamic this argument hinges on: quiet, incremental DA growth in places where voters may not say they’re switching but do.
Ronald Reagan famously credited his early political victories to a “silent majority” who were sick of what they saw as ineffective Democrat governing. One has no idea whether it will be a good thing or a bad thing, but maybe, perhaps, possibly, a reverse Bradley Effect could mean that, thanks to the ANC’s well-documented failures, a silent group of black voters in Johannesburg could be bracing themselves to take the plunge and vote for the DA.
• Davenport is chief creative officer for Mediology Vice Media & Virtue Advertising London & Dubai, a part-time psychology student and an occasional war correspondent.
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