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Blue-Collar Whites Down On Obama

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The Associated Press

Published: May 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama's problem winning votes from working-class whites is showing no sign of going away, and their impression of him since November has gotten worse.

Those are ominous signals as he hopes for strong performances this week in Indiana and North Carolina primaries that would derail the candidacy of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. Those contests come as his candidacy has been rocked by renewed attention to his volatile former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and by his defeat in last month's Pennsylvania primary.

In an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll in April, 53 percent of whites who have not completed college viewed Obama unfavorably, up a dozen percentage points from late last year. During that period, the numbers viewing Clinton and Republican candidate Sen. John McCain negatively have stayed about even.

The April poll also showed an overwhelming preference for Clinton over Obama among working-class whites. They favored her by 39 percentage points, compared with a 10-point Obama lead among white college graduates. Political professionals and analysts blame Obama's problems with blue-collar whites on their reluctance to embrace his bid to become the first black president, and his failure to address concerns about job losses and the economy specifically.

Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., said Obama lost among working-class whites in the state because his message of how this generation's time has come did not address their economic needs.

"While it's incredibly motivating and passionate and compelling, it lacks content," Madonna said. "Hillary would come in and relate to them, talk about the specifics of her policy."

Obama pollster Cornell Belcher said that although working-class whites have favored Clinton, the fact that huge numbers of them and other voters have participated in Democratic contests boded well for the November election.

"I don't think there's going to be erosion in the fall of a core group of Democratic voters," Belcher said.

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