A national Newsweek poll out today has Obama leading McCain by 11 points: 52 to 41. Among white voters, McCain has a lead of 47 to 46 but among non-whites Obama commands a whopping 75 to 20 lead. Men (54) are more supportive of Obama then women (50) but Clinton supporters favour Obama 88 to 7.
McCain’s strongest support is among white evangelicals where he leads by 64 to 28. White catholics are more evenly split with Obama leading 48 to 47. Other whites are actually more supportive of Obama than voters generally with a margin of 56 to 35.
Race and religion seem to provide the starkest demographic differences in support for the two candidates. Maximising the support of white evangelicals seems to be McCain’s only chance of averting a complete rout; hence the importance of Palin and the strident, aggressive nature of McCain’s rhetoric recently.
See also: Working class white voters ditching McCain.
Since early September, growing numbers of whites who have not finished college have been expressing the view that Obama cares about people like them, even as fewer say so about McCain, according to AP-GfK polling.
In early September, McCain had a 26-point advantage among white voters without a college degree who were likely to vote, according to the poll. But by late September, the advantage had dropped to 7 points, with McCain leading 46 percent to 39 percent among this group.
For Obama, that’s far better than Democrats have done in recent presidential elections. President Bush carried whites who haven’t finished college by 23 points in 2004 and by 17 points in 2000.
