New Racial Dynamic in S.C.

The racial divide has deepened in South Carolina, with Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton by a wide margin among African Americans, but badly trailing both Clinton and John Edwards among white voters. And underneath the chasm in vote preferences in the new McClatchy-MSNBC poll by Mason-Dixon, there are signs of other, potentially irreconcilable differences.

The poll, released Thursday evening, has Obama outpacing Clinton among black voters 59 percent to 25 percent, but barely getting to double-digits among whites. (African Americans made up about half of all voters in the 2004 South Carolina Democratic primary.) Support for Edwards is similarly tinged by race: 40 percent of whites support him, compared with just 4 percent of black voters.

Of concern to any eventual nominee, however, is that white and black voters have increasingly divergent views of the candidates themselves.

On the surface all three Democratic candidates are popular, but the gaps by race striking. While 85 percent of African Americans hold favorable views of Obama, only about a third of whites agree. And sizable majorities of whites, but fewer than half of blacks, have positive views of Clinton or Edwards.

And the trend has been toward more polarization. In the past week alone, Obama's favorability rating in the McClatchy-MSNBC poll has dropped 19 percentage points among whites, while Clinton's has dropped 13 points among African Americans.

Obama's advantage among African Americans in the latest Post-ABC national poll was not so clearly at Clinton's expense, or vice-versa. In that poll, 81 percent of blacks had positive views of Clinton. Fifty-nine percent of white said they have a favorable opinion of Obama. Among white Democrats, nearly eight in 10 viewed Obama favorably.

Over the last few weeks, however, the Clinton and Obama campaigns have engaged in a bitter dialogue about racial politics, with Clinton surrogates making disparaging remarks about Obama's self-acknowledged drug use and Clinton herself saying that it took Lyndon Johnson to effect civil rights laws.

Democratic voters have been more satisfied than Republicans with their choices throughout the campaign, but that enthusiasm may be challenged if the racial dynamic that appears to have set in among South Carolina voters spills over into other states.

Q: Do you have a favorable, unfavorable or neutral opinion of ...

Percentages from poll conducted Jan. 22-23; percentage from Jan. 14-16 poll in parentheses.

           Favorable  Unfavorable  Neutral  DR*
Barack Obama           
     All      63% (67)   15 (16)   22 (17)  -(-)
     White    34% (53)   34 (33)   32 (14)  -(-)
     Black    85% (78)    1  (3)   14 (19)  -(-)

Hillary Clinton       
     All      57% (62)   14 (14)   29 (24)  -(-)
     White    70% (63)   11 (10)   19 (27)  -(-)
     Black    48% (61)   16 (17)   36 (22)  -(-)

John Edwards           
     All      54% (56)   16 (13)   28 (31)  2(-)
     White    73% (69)   10  (9)   15 (22)  2(-)
     Black    41% (46)   21 (16)   36 (38)  2(-)

*Don't recognize candidate; dash=0; Crosstabs courtesy of Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon. 

By Jon Cohen |  January 25, 2008; 3:50 PM ET Polls
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