PUBLIC MARKS with tags elections & "barack obama"

While his support among white voters has slipped a few points since the last poll, he actually does better among whites against McCain than Clinton, losing the white vote 49-38, as opposed to 53-38 for Clinton. The 11-point deficit among whites might look discouraging, but it’s important to keep in mind that Kerry lost the white vote by 17 points in 2004. Obama is only 3 points below Kerry’s percentage of the white vote (41%), while McCain is 9 points behind Bush’s 58% (the rest are undecided).

Much has already been said about Geraldine Ferraro’s controversial comments implying that Obama wouldn’t be where he is if he were white (or a woman). The purpose of this post is not to attack or defend her comments, but to test her hypothesis that Clinton has been hampered by her gender while Obama has been helped by his race by looking at the exit poll numbers for people who said that a candidate’s race or gender had any influence on their vote.