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Please note that all polls and data here are from 2006 and 2007.
In a CBS poll from 1/18-21 with a margin of error +/- 3%, registered voters were asked the question: If the Democratic Party nominated a black candidate for president, would you vote for that person if he or she were qualified for the job?
87% of registered voters answered yes.
In a Gallup poll from 2/9-11, Americans were asked the question: Between now and the 2008 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates -- their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be black, would you vote for that person?
94% of Americans answered yes.
In the past, there have been polls that overestimated the amount of people who were going to vote for a black candidate. And some have claimed that voters were too embarrassed to admit that they weren't going to support a black candidate causing them to lie to the poller. But in the 2006 midterm elections demonstrated that this pattern was no longer valid.
From a Pew Research report:
"Last year's midterm elections featured several important races that pitted black and white candidates against each other. Unlike the experience of the 1980s and 1990s, pre-election polls in most of these campaigns performed well, and there was little evidence of a "hidden" vote for the white candidate. Although African American candidates lost four of the five statewide races that featured black vs. white candidates, the late pre-election polling tended to mirror the final outcome.1 Black Republican candidates for governor lost by wide margins in Ohio (by 23 points) and Pennsylvania (20 points), but the average of the final independent polls in each state showed similar margins (21 and 23 points, respectively). An African American Democrat, Deval Patrick, won the Massachusetts governor's race by a landslide (56% to 35%) over a white Republican Kerry Healey. Two pre-election polls slightly underestimated Healey's support, but these were conducted about two weeks before the election.
Black candidates also lost in two key Senate races -- Maryland and Tennessee -- but there was no clear evidence of a hidden vote for the white candidate in either state. The more complicated case was in Maryland, where Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is African American, lost his Senate bid to Democrat Benjamin Cardin by 10 points, about the same margin as in a Washington Post poll conducted 10 days before the election. Two other polls, however, showed the race to be much closer. But these polls also underestimated the Democratic vote in the race for governor in which both the Democrat and Republican candidates were white. Both polls showed the two candidates running neck-and-neck, but on Election Day the Democrat, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, beat incumbent Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich by seven points.
The race for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee was perhaps the most closely watched of all the biracial elections last year. Black Democrat Harold Ford, Jr. narrowly lost to white Republican Bob Corker, 51% to 48%. There were many pre-election polls in this race, and three of the final four polls actually overstated
Corker's lead.
Taken together, the accuracy of the polling in these five biracial elections suggests that the problems that bedeviled polling in the 1980s and early 1990s may no longer be so serious. This change is not a result of broader improvements in the methodology of election polling; most election polls in the earlier period were competently done and generally performed well in predicting election outcomes.
The experience of the 2006 elections indicates that racism may be less of a factor in public judgments about African American candidates than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It is true that the African American candidate lost in four of the five statewide races examined, but three of these were Republicans running in a bad year for Republicans. In each of these three cases, the other major statewide race pitted two white candidates (for the U.S. Senate in Ohio and Pennsylvania and for governor in Maryland), and the Democratic candidates' margin of victory was similar to those in races involving a black Republican. It is also the case that black candidates in these races tended to do as well among whites of their party as white candidates did in other states. For example, the National Election Pool exit poll -- which is conducted with an anonymous ballot and thus less likely than a telephone or face-to-face interview to elicit a socially desirable but erroneous response -- found that 91% of white Democratic voters in Tennessee chose Harold Ford, about the same level of support that white Democrats in Virginia gave Jim Webb (92%). This is also about the level of support that white Republicans in Maryland gave African American Michael Steele (94%).
No one would deny that race still matters in U.S. politics. For the past half century, the political parties have been increasingly divided in their positions on racial issues, and that, in turn, has affected voters' decisions to call themselves Republicans or Democrats. But this review of exit polls and electoral outcomes in several recent elections suggests that fewer people are making judgments about candidates based solely, or even mostly, on race itself, and that relatively few people are now unwilling to tell pollsters how they honestly feel about particular candidates. In such an environment, the high standing of Barack Obama in presidential polling -- or, for that matter, of Colin Powell prior to the 1996 presidential election -- represents a significant change in American politics."
In a CBS poll from 1/18-21 with a margin of error +/- 3%, registered voters were asked the question: If the Democratic Party nominated a black candidate for president, would you vote for that person if he or she were qualified for the job?
87% of registered voters answered yes.
In a Gallup poll from 2/9-11, Americans were asked the question: Between now and the 2008 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates -- their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be black, would you vote for that person?
94% of Americans answered yes.
In the past, there have been polls that overestimated the amount of people who were going to vote for a black candidate. And some have claimed that voters were too embarrassed to admit that they weren't going to support a black candidate causing them to lie to the poller. But in the 2006 midterm elections demonstrated that this pattern was no longer valid.
From a Pew Research report:
"Last year's midterm elections featured several important races that pitted black and white candidates against each other. Unlike the experience of the 1980s and 1990s, pre-election polls in most of these campaigns performed well, and there was little evidence of a "hidden" vote for the white candidate. Although African American candidates lost four of the five statewide races that featured black vs. white candidates, the late pre-election polling tended to mirror the final outcome.1 Black Republican candidates for governor lost by wide margins in Ohio (by 23 points) and Pennsylvania (20 points), but the average of the final independent polls in each state showed similar margins (21 and 23 points, respectively). An African American Democrat, Deval Patrick, won the Massachusetts governor's race by a landslide (56% to 35%) over a white Republican Kerry Healey. Two pre-election polls slightly underestimated Healey's support, but these were conducted about two weeks before the election.
Black candidates also lost in two key Senate races -- Maryland and Tennessee -- but there was no clear evidence of a hidden vote for the white candidate in either state. The more complicated case was in Maryland, where Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is African American, lost his Senate bid to Democrat Benjamin Cardin by 10 points, about the same margin as in a Washington Post poll conducted 10 days before the election. Two other polls, however, showed the race to be much closer. But these polls also underestimated the Democratic vote in the race for governor in which both the Democrat and Republican candidates were white. Both polls showed the two candidates running neck-and-neck, but on Election Day the Democrat, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, beat incumbent Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich by seven points.
The race for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee was perhaps the most closely watched of all the biracial elections last year. Black Democrat Harold Ford, Jr. narrowly lost to white Republican Bob Corker, 51% to 48%. There were many pre-election polls in this race, and three of the final four polls actually overstated Corker's lead.
Taken together, the accuracy of the polling in these five biracial elections suggests that the problems that bedeviled polling in the 1980s and early 1990s may no longer be so serious. This change is not a result of broader improvements in the methodology of election polling; most election polls in the earlier period were competently done and generally performed well in predicting election outcomes.
The experience of the 2006 elections indicates that racism may be less of a factor in public judgments about African American candidates than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It is true that the African American candidate lost in four of the five statewide races examined, but three of these were Republicans running in a bad year for Republicans. In each of these three cases, the other major statewide race pitted two white candidates (for the U.S. Senate in Ohio and Pennsylvania and for governor in Maryland), and the Democratic candidates' margin of victory was similar to those in races involving a black Republican. It is also the case that black candidates in these races tended to do as well among whites of their party as white candidates did in other states. For example, the National Election Pool exit poll -- which is conducted with an anonymous ballot and thus less likely than a telephone or face-to-face interview to elicit a socially desirable but erroneous response -- found that 91% of white Democratic voters in Tennessee chose Harold Ford, about the same level of support that white Democrats in Virginia gave Jim Webb (92%). This is also about the level of support that white Republicans in Maryland gave African American Michael Steele (94%).
No one would deny that race still matters in U.S. politics. For the past half century, the political parties have been increasingly divided in their positions on racial issues, and that, in turn, has affected voters' decisions to call themselves Republicans or Democrats. But this review of exit polls and electoral outcomes in several recent elections suggests that fewer people are making judgments about candidates based solely, or even mostly, on race itself, and that relatively few people are now unwilling to tell pollsters how they honestly feel about particular candidates. In such an environment, the high standing of Barack Obama in presidential polling -- or, for that matter, of Colin Powell prior to the 1996 presidential election -- represents a significant change in American politics."
