Bigoted white Dems could doom Obama's effort '08 CAMPAIGN | Bigoted white Dems could doom Obama's effort if election is close, poll finds
September 21, 2008 BY RON FOURNIER AND TREVOR TOMPSON WASHINGTON -- Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost 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.
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Barack Obama speaks Saturday in Jacksonville, Fla. AP-Yahoo News models suggest racism may cost him 6 percentage points. (AP)
Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He's an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.
More than a third of all white Democrats and independents -- voters Obama can't win the White House without -- agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.
''There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots,'' said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman, who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.
The pollsters sought why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does the fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.
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 with the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.
Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. Still, the effects of whites' racial views are apparent.
Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.
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. AP
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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