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The Role of Race

February 15, 2008 9:35 AM

Polling Director Gary Langer blogs:

Race has been a riveting factor in the Democratic presidential primaries; even beyond sex, age and socioeconomics, it looks to be the single most powerful demographic in vote choices – at least for nonwhites.

Witness New Mexico, which Hillary Clinton last night was announced to have won by a razor-thin 1,709 votes – despite losing white voters there by a 12-point margin. The reason: her 26-point victory among Hispanics.

I wrote last week about white men as a swing group; it proved out in Virginia and Maryland. But differing vote preferences between African-Americans and Hispanics are essential as well, and especially worth evaluating with an eye toward the Texas primary ahead.

There is some tension here. In aggregate exit poll data from the Super Tuesday states, just 3 percent of whites called the race of the candidate “the single most important factor” in their vote; that rose to 12 percent among Hispanics. Voters in both those groups favored Clinton by roughly 3-1 margins, 73-22 percent among whites, 72-27 percent among Hispanics – in both cases, better for Clinton than she did among whites and Hispanics who gave less importance to the candidates’ race.

Continue reading on Gary’s The Numbers blog.

February 15, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (0)

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