The usaelectionpolls.com website has some interesting state tabulations by racial group for the exit polls for Democratic Party primaries and caucuses(photo credit). Given Senator Clinton’s recent white-framed, racialized remarks on white voters, these exit poll data are revealing and very relevant to numerous recent debates in the media:

White Voters in the 2008 Exit Polls (29 states)

Senator Clinton got a larger percentage of (exit poll) white voters than Senator Obama in 23 of the 29 states listed here, and also in the more recent states of North Carolina and Indiana. (25 of 31)

Black Voters in the 2008 Exit Polls (23 states)

Senator Obama got the majority of black voters (never less than 68 percent) in all 23 states listed, plus in the recent primaries of North Carolina and Indiana that are not listed. (25 of 25)

Latino Voters in the 2008 Exit Polls (12 states)

Senator Clinton got a larger percentage of Latino voters than Senator Obama in 9 of the 12 states listed. (9 of 12)

Asian Voters in One 2008 Exit Poll (one state)

Only one state had enough Asian American voters to report on that, and Clinton carried them by a large percentage in California. (1 of 1)


There are several interpretations of these striking racial patterns in exit poll data given by media pundits and by political bloggers. Some are arguing that the majority of white Democratic Party voters going for Senator Clinton in most states just means that these whites (and other nonblack voters) are choosing the candidate they see as more in line with their political-economic views. Another plausible interpretation of the skew in the figures for white voters, as well as for Latino and Asian American voters, is that some significant percentage of all these groups hold racial stereotypes and negative feelings about Black men from the still-common white racial frame, and that framing makes it difficult for some to vote for a Black man for president.


There is certainly significant evidence (here and here)showing the prevalence of racially stereotyped thinking among a majority of white Americans about Black Americans in the current social science literature, which has been cited here before. In this regard, as I have argued before, Senator Obama has an uphill battle, especially since the majority of white voters do not vote in Democratic primaries and have yet to be heard from on whether they will exhibit racialized preferences for a white candidate, Senator McCain.


It is also possible that these exit polls are exaggerating to some degree the white support for Senator Obama, since there is pressure for some whites to tell pollsters voting preferences that make them look unprejudiced–pressure that some who voted for a candidate besides Obama may lead them to say to pollsters that they did vote for Obama. We just do not have the data to make more than speculative judgments about the full meaning of these racialized voting data, but it would be very surprising if they are not connected, directly and indirectly, to the dominant white racial framing of African Americans.


Many media analysts, as well as some of the campaign consultants (and Senator Clinton recently) have misread these exit poll data to some extent. The white voters who are not voting for Senator Obama in most of these states are likely to be at least half middle class and upper middle class — and thus are not the proverbial “white working class” or “white blue collar” voters that many analysts seem fixated on. Is the reason white middle class voters, and their possible racist reservations about voting for Senator Obama, are neglected in the analyses because most of the media and other public commentators are white middle class?


Moreover, one very striking thing about these data is that neither Senator Clinton, nor anyone else among powerful white political, economic, or religious leaders, seems to be willing to dissect and/or condemn the likely racist framing and motivation that is leading many white voters to shy away from voting for Senator Obama. In my view, his only chance to win in November, assuming he is the Democratic candidate, is to make the white racist frame a political and societal issue and to attack it head on, rather than to let it do its usual huge, often backstage, damage. Otherwise, assuming the social science data are correct about white views on racial matters, he has only a remote chance of winning.