… A new paper by Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen has discovered that the proportion of enslaved residents in 1860—153 years ago—predicts race-related beliefs today. As the percent of the population in a county accounted for by the enslaved increases, there is a decreased likelihood that contemporary white […] Read more »
The Color of Affordable Care
… An Associated Press survey of racial attitudes conducted immediately before the presidential election last year clearly suggests that most Americans try not to discriminate, but that racial loyalties shape their perceptions of economic benefits. When asked if President Obama’s race affected the likelihood they would vote for him, 80 […] Read more »
Stark Divide Between Blacks, Whites on Gun Control and Health Care
Immigration isn’t the only issue that represents a hurdle for Republicans hoping to improve their performance among Hispanics, Asians, African-Americans, and other minority voters. This week’s United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll tested attitudes about two of the most incendiary issues now dividing the parties in Washington: health reform and […] Read more »
How Did Conservatives Get This Radical?
… Mainstream conservatives trying to figure out how to extract their party from the hole their more extreme colleagues are digging for them face a major hurdle: the dependence of the national Republican Party on the votes of besieged whites, especially white southerners. … There may be no way to […] Read more »
Bad Bet: Why Republicans Can’t Win With Whites Alone
This much is undisputed: In 2012, President Obama lost white voters by a larger margin than any winning presidential candidate in U.S. history. In his reelection, Obama lost ground from 2008 with almost every conceivable segment of the white electorate. With several key groups of whites, he recorded the weakest […] Read more »
Few think all of Martin Luther King’s goals have been met
There is widespread consensus about the impact of Martin Luther King Jr. on the lives of black Americans — more than four in five Americans think he improved their lives, according to a new CBS News poll released Wednesday. Eighty-five percent of Americans think he made things better for blacks, […] Read more »