As the presidential race emerges from Labor Day in a dead heat, there is one question that may matter above all others: Are there voters out there planning to pull the lever for Trump who just aren’t saying so?

If there are shy Trump voters, it may be the GOP nominee is actually leading the 2016 race for the White House.

There is evidence to indicate that Republicans and Trump supporters are much more likely not to tell pollsters and others who they are supporting for the White House.

There was a phenomenon during the first race of Barack Obama: Those polled said they would vote for the first black candidate, but not as many actually did. Are there now Trump voters out there who are doing the opposite — saying they won’t vote for him but actually will?

A number of political observers, including Trump’s campaign manager herself, believe Trump voters are not easy to identify. And now there is evidence to indicate that Republicans and Trump supporters are much more likely not to tell pollsters and others who they are supporting for the White House.

In a poll done specifically on the “shyness” issue, Rasmussen Reports found that 17 percent of likely Republican voters will not tell people who they are supporting. Only 10 percent of likely Democratic voters said the same thing.

[lz_jwplayer video=”C5U4hPCb” ads=”true”]

And another 25 percent of unaffiliated voters said they, too, are not disclosing their choice.

Going deeper into the poll, one finds even more evidence Trump supporters are the silent, shy type. The Rasmussen poll found 20 percent of conservative and moderate voters are less likely to reveal their choice for president this year. Only 10 percent of liberals said the same.

Polls like this indicate people are suffering from peer pressure — or perhaps that they are new to the game. Some Trump supporters say that many of the Trump voting bloc will be new voters, not found in the phone databases that traditional pollsters use.

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager and a longtime pollster, said last month there were “undercover Trump supporters” being missed by pollsters.

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

Conway made the remarks to a British news agency in late August. She said it was fashionable for the college-educated to hide their support for Trump. Conway added she is also working on identifying those voters in a campaign project.

It was a coincidence that Conway made the remarks to Britons, but the polling effect Conway refers to is sometimes called the “shy Tory” effect. The term was coined after the 1992 election in the United Kingdom, when the Conservative Party, also known as the Tories, only lost 40 seats in Parliament.

[lz_related_box id=”199774″]

The Tories held onto their majority when many expected the Labour Party would win a majority — or at least a plurality. Most polls had indicated so. But pollsters had been deceived by voters who were “shy” about disclosing support for the Tories, who had controlled Parliament since 1979.

A similar thing happened this year when Bloomberg tracked voters’ feelings about voting for “Brexit,” or the exit from the European Union.

Bloomberg News Agency estimated on the day before the referendum that 46.2 percent of voters would vote to remain in the E.U. Bloomberg estimated that 44.3 percent would vote to leave. Clearly, “Remain” had the lead — until the next day, when “Brexit” passed.

The Trump campaign did not return emails from LifeZette about their theories on shy Trump voters. But it’s worth keeping in mind that Conway told reporters in late August that the number of these voters is “significant.”