As voters hit the polls across the nation today, Binghamton University professors are weighing in on who the next president will be, and the effect his presidency will have on the United States.

On Monday, the last day before the election, both candidates ended their campaigns as they held final rallies in multiple swing states. According to CNN’s average of national polls posted Monday afternoon, Sen. John McCain was trailing Sen. Barack Obama by seven percentage-points.

“Any professor who tells you he knows [who will win the election] is kidding,” John McNulty, a professor in the political science department, said. “I suppose we all have our hunches.”

According to Gregory Robinson, a professor of American politics at BU, college campuses are often liberal, even more so than the community hosting them.

“I think the Democrats will win with a moderate to large victory,” he said.

Robinson said the changes in politics over the past few years should prevent the Bradley effect from influencing the election.

According to Robinson, the Bradley, or Wilder effect, is a theory that explains how voters tell opinion polls they’ll vote for one candidate, then choose his opponent on election day instead. The term was coined after the California mayoral election of 1982, when African American candidate Tom Bradley lost to his white opponent even though polls predicted a wide lead.

“I think it is almost inevitable that something like that [the Bradley effect] is going to happen,” McNulty said. “The question is how big it will be and if it is big enough to matter.”

McNulty explained how the Bradley effect is not a matter of racism, more of a reluctance to appear racist by those who are polled. Instead, individuals may be voting for one candidate based on his experience, policies and other traits, but don’t want others to assume they’re voting for him just because of his race.

“The fact that he [Obama] is African-American will affect the votes,” McNulty said. “Whether it will harm him or help him is going to remain to be seen. I’d be somewhat surprised if Obama seriously underperformed his polls.”

Daniel Henderson, a professor of econometrics, said he is having a hard time making a prediction on the election.

“Things keep changing, all kinds of things are going to happen [on Election Day], especially if the results are close,” he said.

Though the economy is the main thing Americans hope to see a change in once the new president is elected, Henderson said he does not think there will be a great result on the economy right away.

“Uncertainty is always bad for the market,” he said. “Regardless who wins, there will be a small increase on Nov. 5.”

According to Henderson, people used to think that Republicans were good for Wall Street, and Democrats were not.

“This is not necessarily true — Bush destroyed the economy, and Obama is not the typical Democrat,” he said.

Robinson is also unsure of how the results of the election will influence the United States in the long-run.

“Since we already got to where we are, there has already been change,” Robinson said. “The polls are so close and a huge proportion of white America is [accepting] of a black candidate, the race [of the election winner] depends more on the policies.”

McNulty said he sees this year’s presidential and vice presidential candidates as holding symbolic value, and that a black candidate is, in his opinion, ultimately the end of the abolition movement.

“It is going to be entirely symbolic,” he said. “If the president of the United States is a black man, it is not going to immediately eliminate racism between whites and blacks in the United States. Even less of an effect will be seen if McCain wins and Gov. Palin becomes vice president.”

“Both women and minorities have often been confined to the second banana status,” he said “Being a vice president, while a wonderful achievement, is still a second banana.”