Monday, April 27, 2009

More on Race and Ideology

A couple weeks ago I commented on the interesting fact that contrary to conventional wisdom, more black voters in North Carolina describe themselves as conservatives than liberals.

I've been tracking this on some of our other polls too and the trend continues:

-In Illinois, where we'll be releasing poll results from Tuesday to Thursday, 54% of African Americans identify as moderates, 25% as conservatives, and 21% as liberals.

-On our national poll last week the breakdown was 55% moderates, 30% conservatives, and 15% liberals.

I think the biggest implication of this is for Democratic primaries: running as the 'left' candidate is not necessarily a good path to winning the black vote, so important in many states.

It also makes you wonder how much better Republicans could do if they were able to shed the racist image they've built up over the years with many black voters.

1 comment:

Ian Lazaran said...

Jensen,

Your numbers aren't very surprising considering that African-Americans are largely socially conservative.

http://www.lifenews.com/nat2376.html

"In an August 2004 survey sponsored by Pace University and Rock the Vote, 54 percent of all Americans declared themselves pro-life while just 44 percent said they supported legal abortion. However, African-American voters took a pro-life position by a larger 59 to 42 percent margin."

Have you looked at the numbers among "other?"

 
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