The numbers are terrible but the study estimates that anti-black sentiment will only cost Obama about 2 points in the polls.
The poll finds that racial prejudice is not limited to one group of partisans. Although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79 percent among Republicans compared with 32 percent among Democrats), the implicit test found little difference between the two parties. That test showed a majority of both Democrats and Republicans held anti-black feelings (55 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans), as did about half of political independents (49 percent).
I do wonder how the polls would look if the Democratic candidate were white. I particularly wonder how the state polls would differ. How would the Democrat look in states like Georgia, Missouri, or West Virginia? We’ll never know, but we might get some idea in 2016.
