Lots of commentary about the new AP/Yahoo! poll on the role of white racial attitudes might have on the election. Since I haven’t had a chance to look at the poll data, I can’t comment on it directly, but the findings seem to reinforce my own analyses of recent polls. In addition, I see that Paul Sniderman helped interpret the poll findings. In the past, I’ve been critical of Sniderman’s work since I believe that it downplays the extent and impact of white racism, so if he finds evidence of white racism at work in the election, I’m inclined to belive it.
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You’re right. Intuitively, his writings on white racial stereotypes seems off to me. When I looked at the results of this poll, it seemed much closer to reality.
But to know whether Obama’s race makes a difference here, we’d need to see a figure that compares “Percentage of whites who describe blacks as…” to “Percentage of whites who describe whites as…”
Maybe that’s in the statistical model.
Eric:
You’re raising issues of inference here. Race scholars aren’t interested in that sort of thing. They simply eye-ball normatively-chosen frequencies and lash out with claims of “racists!”
I am currious about the validity of this poll reflecting the swing states specifically. Hillary won by 30 points in KY and WV. I would think that the Red states would weight down this poll and not be reflective of swing states.
Is there any plan for Sniderman to isolate the swing states from the red states?
That would be very good information. My feeling is Obama’s race would be less of a factor in these places and that even if people do have some negative feeling toward blacks, they could still vote for him. That is my hope. Let’s look deeper.
Phil–I’d be interested to see what you think of Nate Silver’s comments: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/on-race-based-voting.html
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