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Poll: White Democrats Have Racial Misgivings

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The Associated Press

Published: September 23, 2008

WASHINGTON - Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Illinois Sen. Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks - many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 - about 2.5 percentage points.

Certainly, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona has his own obstacles. He is an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of white Americans hold at least a partly negative view of blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.

More than a third of white Democrats and independents - voters Obama cannot win the White House without - agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey. And they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.

The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home - among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.

The survey also focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.

On the other side of the racial question, Obama is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, though that probably would not be enough to counter the negative effect of some whites' views.

Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.

Three in 10 of those Democrats who do not trust Obama's change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.

Still, the effects of whites' racial views are apparent in the polling.

Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there was no racial prejudice among whites.

The AP-Yahoo poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone. Numerous studies have shown that people are more likely to report embarrassing behavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computer rather than talking to a stranger.

Other techniques used in the poll included recording people's responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen.

The survey of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

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