A new Gallup poll suggests that the “race” issue may be a double-edged sword for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama — one that could actually turn out to be a plus in terms of votes:
While 6% of voters say they are less likely to vote for Barack Obama because of his race, 9% say they are more likely to vote for him, making the impact of his race a neutral to slightly positive factor when all voters’ self-reported attitudes are taken into account.
The question that will be argued is whether voters “reported” attitudes can be trusted when it comes to answering pollsters’ questions…
At the same time, 6% of voters say John McCain’s race will make them less likely to vote for him, with 7% saying it makes them more likely to vote for him, leading to the same basic conclusion: McCain’s race, like Obama’s, is on balance neither a plus nor a minus.
These conclusions are based on eight dimensions potentially affecting the vote for both candidates.
At the end of the breakdown Gallup offers this:
The potential impact of Obama’s race on the election has been the more scrutinized this year. These data, taken at face value, show that if anything, his race could be a net plus, in the sense that it makes slightly more voters want to vote for him than not want to vote for him.
Some details:
One of the dimensions tested for each candidate was “his race.” More specifically, as was true for each of the other seven dimensions, respondents were asked to indicate whether each candidate’s race made them more likely, or less likely, to vote for him for president. The data are presented in the charts here.
Eighty-five percent of voters say Obama’s race makes no difference, and 87% say McCain’s race makes no difference. This makes race the single dimension out of the eight tested that is the least likely to have an impact on the vote.
This suggests more than ever that the key for McCain and Obama to winning the election is to address the economic issue. And the danger to the McCain campaign is that any attacks that can be spun by Democrats as being racial “code” words (even if that is not the case) could well backfire, given this polling data.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.