A new NEWSWEEK Poll underscores Obama’s racial challenge.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4327
By Jonathan Darman
Even as he closes in on the Democratic nomination for the presidency, Sen. Barack Obama is facing lingering problems winning the support of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4687 40 percent to 52 percent among whites. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama’s challenger for the Democratic nomination, also trails McCain among white voters but by a smaller margin, 44 percent to 48 percent.
Among voters overall, however, Obama fares better, tying McCain 46 percent to 46 percent in a hypothetical match-up. (That’s down slightly, within the margin of error, from the last NEWSWEEK Poll, conducted in late April, in which Obama led McCain 47 percent to 44 percent). In that contest, he is boosted by a strong showing among nonwhites, leading McCain 68 percent to 25 percent (Clinton leads McCain 65 percent to 25 percent among nonwhites). But even this result shows some of the electoral challenges facing Obama in a year when Democrats generally appear to hold an electoral advantage–boasting a 15 point advantage in generic party identification over Republicans, 53 percent to 38 percent. Clinton fares slightly better against McCain: 48 percent to 44 percent (within the margin of error).She enjoys this slight edge even though Obama leads Clinton 50 percent to 42 percent as the choice of registered Democrats for the party’s nomination. Clinton’s white support is unusually high: at a comparable point in the 2004 election, Democratic nominee John Kerry received the support of 36 percent of white voters, compared to George W. Bush’s 48 percent, and in June of 2000, Bush led Al Gore 48 percent to 39 percent.
Obama’s race may well explain his difficulty in winning over white voters. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, participants were asked to answer questions on a variety of race-related topics including racial preferences, interracial marriage, attitudes toward social welfare and general attitudes toward African-Americans. Respondents were grouped according to their answers on a “Racial Resentment Index.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/138456?GT1=43002