By Sean Mussenden
Media General News Service
Media General News Service
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WINSTON-SALEM, NC—North Carolina has long run red in presidential elections, but polls give Sen. Barack Obama the best shot at turning the state blue of any Democratic candidate in decades.
Some supporters, however, wonder whether a state with a long history of racially colored politics will award its electoral votes to Obama -- who could become the nation’s first black president. Others hope that the state has progressed much since 1990, the year of one of the nastiest Senate races of the modern era.
During that campaign, between then-Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt and longtime Sen. Jesse Helms, race became a central focus.
Gantt, who is black, had the lead in most polls until the contest took a sharply racial turn at the end and almost all of the previously undecided voters went with Helms.
This year, because of the unprecedented nature of Obama’s candidacy, political analysts say they will not know what role race played until after the election.
Race has been a factor throughout the campaign both nationally and, at times, in North Carolina.
In April, the North Carolina Republican Party ran a television ad mentioning controversial statements by the pastor of Obama’s African-American church, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Democrats roundly denounced the advertisement as playing on racist fears, and McCain and national Republicans asked state GOP officials not to run it.
Early on Obama himself was dogged by accusations from some African-American supporters of Hillary Clinton that he wasn’t “black enough.”
During a racially charged primary fight with Clinton, in which he had trouble attracting support from older, white voters, he gave a landmark speech on race widely viewed as a pivotal moment in the campaign. In the speech, Obama called for the country to acknowledge long-standing racial divisions and work to move beyond them.
“It’s 18 years later, and in my heart of hearts I believe race is less of a factor today than it was at that time. It’s a factor, but not to the extent that it was 18 years ago,” said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., an Obama supporter who was Gantt’s campaign manager in 1990.
BRADLEY EFFECT
Pollsters have had difficulty in the past accurately predicting high-profile races featuring black candidates because of the so-called Bradley Effect.
The theory, which is named after Tom Bradley, an African-American who lost a bid for California governor in 1982 despite holding a commanding lead in the polls, argues that some voters lie about their preferences to pollsters to avoid appearing racist.
A similar phenomenon emerged in the race between Gantt and Helms. In the final days, the Helms campaign aired a now infamous advertisement that featured the hands of a white man crumpling a job application and attacking Gantt’s support of affirmative action.
Carter Wrenn, a consultant for Helms during that race, said he could tell from internal polling data that many of those undecided voters planned to back Helms, but weren’t saying so to avoid appearing racist.
“If you saw someone who was a white, rural, conservative Democrat who was undecided in the Helms race but voting for other Republicans, you could tell they would vote Helms at the end,” he said.
The most recent polls show Obama and McCain deadlocked in North Carolina, though a sizable number of undecided voters remain.
Researchers who study the Bradley Effect say it is more likely to appear in campaigns that turn on racially coded issues such as crime or affirmative action. That was the case in 1990.
In part because the presidential race has focused on the economy, Wrenn and other veterans of the 1990 Helms-Gantt race say they would be surprised to see such a lopsided break among undecided voters this year.
A New York Times poll conducted in late October found that a third of voters nationally said they knew someone who would not vote for Obama because of his race.
“The demographics of the state have changed significantly since Senator Helms used those tactics to great affect,” said Kerry Haynie, a Duke University political scientist. “I think we’re past the point in American politics where you can be blatantly racist and have that work for you.”
State Republicans denied that their Obama-Wright ad, which was aimed at state Democratic candidates who took money from Obama, was racist.
After the initial airing this spring, the ad has not resurfaced.
“We felt like we got our message out effectively,” state GOP spokesman Brent Woodcox said of the decision not to re-air the aid.
Since then, the presidential campaign in the state and nationally has been largely free of direct racial messages, Haynie said.
But he said more subtle racial appeals have popped up at the end of the campaign, including false whispers about Obama being a Muslim, the tying of Obama to radical terrorists, and focus on redistribution of wealth.
“When Senator McCain talks about taking your money and giving people who don’t deserve it, that summons up subtle racial images, the welfare queens of the Reagan era,” he said.
In interviews with white voters in rural parts of North Carolina this week, most said they knew someone who would not vote for Obama because he is African American.
Ronald Childers, a white Democrat who works in a truck plant in Mount Holly, and plans to vote for Obama, said more than a handful of white co-workers have told him “I’m not going to vote for that ‘N-word’.”
He said he’s tried to change a few minds at his plant, with little success.
“First, I tell them, look he’s got a white parent and a black parent, so he’s not really black, he’s mixed,” he said. Obama’s white mother was born in Kansas. His father, who was black, returned to his native Kenya shortly after Obama was born.
“Then I tell them, you don’t judge a man by his skin color. Those days are over,” Childers said.
The perceived racism of others is also affecting how some will vote. Angela Sands, a waitress at a barbecue joint in Reidsville, said Obama would bring jobs to her struggling town and that John McCain has “no business running the country.”
But she plans to write in a cartoon character as a protest vote instead of voting for Obama.
“He would make a real difference,” said Sands, who is white. “But there are a lot of crazy people in this county and he’s going to be assassinated within six months because he’s black.”
CONFRONTING RACE
Despite the lack of direct, late-stage racial appeals that hurt Gantt, some Obama supporters in North Carolina fear similar sentiments will hurt Obama’s chances on Election Day.
Labor unions have been particularly aggressive in addressing this issue. The American Federation of Government Employees is running a radio ad in North Carolina that says
“There are a hundred good reasons for how you vote this year and only one bad reason — prejudice.”
MaryBe McMillan, the secretary-treasurer of the N.C. State AFL-CIO, said that leaders of local unions are taking that same message directly to their workers.
“If there is hidden racism going on, when white union members see other white union leaders so passionately behind Obama, there are more likely to take another look at Obama and vote for him themselves,” she said.
Pollsters say that Obama’s race could also help his campaign. African-American voters typically make up about 18 percent of the electorate in presidential races in North Carolina and vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
This year, pollsters predict that a surge of new African-American will boost that number to 22 percent.
The high turnout is one reason Obama is competitive in a state that traditionally votes Republican in presidential races. Jimmy Carter won the state in 1976, becoming the last Democrat to do so.
“This year is historic. It’s the first time African-Americans have been able to vote for an African-American for president, so we think turnout will be high,” said Dean Debnam, president of Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling, which has run several polls on the presidential race in the state.
Ronnie Dunlap, an African-American from Concord, who works with kids in an after-school program, registered and early voted for Obama on the same day last week.
It was his first time voting, though he was eligible to vote in the last few presidential elections.
“It’s time to make a change. To me, the color of his skin wasn’t as important as his stance on issues like the economy,” he said. “But it would be an awesome thing to have an African-American in the White House for the first time in history.”
***
Race and the Presidential Race by the Numbers
Percentage of voters that told pollsters:
2 - They were more likely to vote for Barack Obama because he is black.
3 - Race was the single most important factor behind their vote.
4 - They were less likely to vote for Obama because he is black.
5 - Race was one of several important factors behind their vote.
11 - Obama’s policies favor blacks over whites.
19 - John McCain’s policies favor whites over blacks.
21 - They know someone who is voting for Obama because he is black.
33 - They know someone who is not voting for Obama because he is black.
Source: New York Times/CBS News Poll, Oct. 23; Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, Oct. 22
Some supporters, however, wonder whether a state with a long history of racially colored politics will award its electoral votes to Obama -- who could become the nation’s first black president. Others hope that the state has progressed much since 1990, the year of one of the nastiest Senate races of the modern era.
During that campaign, between then-Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt and longtime Sen. Jesse Helms, race became a central focus.
Gantt, who is black, had the lead in most polls until the contest took a sharply racial turn at the end and almost all of the previously undecided voters went with Helms.
This year, because of the unprecedented nature of Obama’s candidacy, political analysts say they will not know what role race played until after the election.
Race has been a factor throughout the campaign both nationally and, at times, in North Carolina.
In April, the North Carolina Republican Party ran a television ad mentioning controversial statements by the pastor of Obama’s African-American church, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Democrats roundly denounced the advertisement as playing on racist fears, and McCain and national Republicans asked state GOP officials not to run it.
Early on Obama himself was dogged by accusations from some African-American supporters of Hillary Clinton that he wasn’t “black enough.”
During a racially charged primary fight with Clinton, in which he had trouble attracting support from older, white voters, he gave a landmark speech on race widely viewed as a pivotal moment in the campaign. In the speech, Obama called for the country to acknowledge long-standing racial divisions and work to move beyond them.
“It’s 18 years later, and in my heart of hearts I believe race is less of a factor today than it was at that time. It’s a factor, but not to the extent that it was 18 years ago,” said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., an Obama supporter who was Gantt’s campaign manager in 1990.
BRADLEY EFFECT
Pollsters have had difficulty in the past accurately predicting high-profile races featuring black candidates because of the so-called Bradley Effect.
The theory, which is named after Tom Bradley, an African-American who lost a bid for California governor in 1982 despite holding a commanding lead in the polls, argues that some voters lie about their preferences to pollsters to avoid appearing racist.
A similar phenomenon emerged in the race between Gantt and Helms. In the final days, the Helms campaign aired a now infamous advertisement that featured the hands of a white man crumpling a job application and attacking Gantt’s support of affirmative action.
Carter Wrenn, a consultant for Helms during that race, said he could tell from internal polling data that many of those undecided voters planned to back Helms, but weren’t saying so to avoid appearing racist.
“If you saw someone who was a white, rural, conservative Democrat who was undecided in the Helms race but voting for other Republicans, you could tell they would vote Helms at the end,” he said.
The most recent polls show Obama and McCain deadlocked in North Carolina, though a sizable number of undecided voters remain.
Researchers who study the Bradley Effect say it is more likely to appear in campaigns that turn on racially coded issues such as crime or affirmative action. That was the case in 1990.
In part because the presidential race has focused on the economy, Wrenn and other veterans of the 1990 Helms-Gantt race say they would be surprised to see such a lopsided break among undecided voters this year.
A New York Times poll conducted in late October found that a third of voters nationally said they knew someone who would not vote for Obama because of his race.
“The demographics of the state have changed significantly since Senator Helms used those tactics to great affect,” said Kerry Haynie, a Duke University political scientist. “I think we’re past the point in American politics where you can be blatantly racist and have that work for you.”
State Republicans denied that their Obama-Wright ad, which was aimed at state Democratic candidates who took money from Obama, was racist.
After the initial airing this spring, the ad has not resurfaced.
“We felt like we got our message out effectively,” state GOP spokesman Brent Woodcox said of the decision not to re-air the aid.
Since then, the presidential campaign in the state and nationally has been largely free of direct racial messages, Haynie said.
But he said more subtle racial appeals have popped up at the end of the campaign, including false whispers about Obama being a Muslim, the tying of Obama to radical terrorists, and focus on redistribution of wealth.
“When Senator McCain talks about taking your money and giving people who don’t deserve it, that summons up subtle racial images, the welfare queens of the Reagan era,” he said.
In interviews with white voters in rural parts of North Carolina this week, most said they knew someone who would not vote for Obama because he is African American.
Ronald Childers, a white Democrat who works in a truck plant in Mount Holly, and plans to vote for Obama, said more than a handful of white co-workers have told him “I’m not going to vote for that ‘N-word’.”
He said he’s tried to change a few minds at his plant, with little success.
“First, I tell them, look he’s got a white parent and a black parent, so he’s not really black, he’s mixed,” he said. Obama’s white mother was born in Kansas. His father, who was black, returned to his native Kenya shortly after Obama was born.
“Then I tell them, you don’t judge a man by his skin color. Those days are over,” Childers said.
The perceived racism of others is also affecting how some will vote. Angela Sands, a waitress at a barbecue joint in Reidsville, said Obama would bring jobs to her struggling town and that John McCain has “no business running the country.”
But she plans to write in a cartoon character as a protest vote instead of voting for Obama.
“He would make a real difference,” said Sands, who is white. “But there are a lot of crazy people in this county and he’s going to be assassinated within six months because he’s black.”
CONFRONTING RACE
Despite the lack of direct, late-stage racial appeals that hurt Gantt, some Obama supporters in North Carolina fear similar sentiments will hurt Obama’s chances on Election Day.
Labor unions have been particularly aggressive in addressing this issue. The American Federation of Government Employees is running a radio ad in North Carolina that says
“There are a hundred good reasons for how you vote this year and only one bad reason — prejudice.”
MaryBe McMillan, the secretary-treasurer of the N.C. State AFL-CIO, said that leaders of local unions are taking that same message directly to their workers.
“If there is hidden racism going on, when white union members see other white union leaders so passionately behind Obama, there are more likely to take another look at Obama and vote for him themselves,” she said.
Pollsters say that Obama’s race could also help his campaign. African-American voters typically make up about 18 percent of the electorate in presidential races in North Carolina and vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
This year, pollsters predict that a surge of new African-American will boost that number to 22 percent.
The high turnout is one reason Obama is competitive in a state that traditionally votes Republican in presidential races. Jimmy Carter won the state in 1976, becoming the last Democrat to do so.
“This year is historic. It’s the first time African-Americans have been able to vote for an African-American for president, so we think turnout will be high,” said Dean Debnam, president of Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling, which has run several polls on the presidential race in the state.
Ronnie Dunlap, an African-American from Concord, who works with kids in an after-school program, registered and early voted for Obama on the same day last week.
It was his first time voting, though he was eligible to vote in the last few presidential elections.
“It’s time to make a change. To me, the color of his skin wasn’t as important as his stance on issues like the economy,” he said. “But it would be an awesome thing to have an African-American in the White House for the first time in history.”
***
Race and the Presidential Race by the Numbers
Percentage of voters that told pollsters:
2 - They were more likely to vote for Barack Obama because he is black.
3 - Race was the single most important factor behind their vote.
4 - They were less likely to vote for Obama because he is black.
5 - Race was one of several important factors behind their vote.
11 - Obama’s policies favor blacks over whites.
19 - John McCain’s policies favor whites over blacks.
21 - They know someone who is voting for Obama because he is black.
33 - They know someone who is not voting for Obama because he is black.
Source: New York Times/CBS News Poll, Oct. 23; Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, Oct. 22