Romney's Share Of The White Vote Only 56% (Rasmussen), 52% (!! Fox News) (September 28, 2012)
09/28/2012
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Today's Rasmussen poll has Obama 47, Romney 46.

Subscribers to Rasmussen Reports can find out how well he's doing with voters of different races:

Race          White   Black   Other    
Romney      56%    5%      30%    
Obama       36%    94%     58% 

The Gallup Tracking Poll has Obama ahead 50-44,  if the election were held today. Incredibly, but typical of pollsters' reluctance to report race, Gallup says it's justpolling  "registered voters."

The Fox News Poll has Romney behind by 5 points: you have to scroll down to page 23 of this document to get the racial breakdown,  which looks like this:

Race          White   Non-White       
Romney      52%    15%          
Obama       40%    77%    

Note it's the small drop in the white share that makes the big difference.

By comparison, remember even the hapless George W. Bush got 58% in 2004. (Other comparisons here).

We'll continue to post more polls as they appear—RealClearPolitics has a list of presidential pols which is constantly updated.

Today James Taranto's WSJ Best Of The Web column  links to reporting on some of this:

There are other demographic peculiarities in some of these polls as well. At the Daily Caller, Brandon Gaylord of HorseRacePolitics.com looks at the Marist poll of five swing states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia) and finds that it is expecting a large drop-off in evangelical voters in four of them, and a large increase in voters making under $50,000 and decrease in those making over $100,000 in all five. (Higher-income voters tend to be more Republican).

Gaylord's explanation: "I think the problem is that pollsters are so focused with ensuring that Democratic-leaning groups—especially minorities—are fairly represented in their polls that they're failing to ensure that Republican-leaning groups are also fairly represented in their polls."

BattlegroundWatch.com makes a related point, noting that not only was minority turnout way up in 2008, but white turnout was down:

Every voter turnout rate by race (relative to eligible population) was up versus 2004 except the white vote according to Pew Research. . . . Blacks were up +4.9%, Hispanics were up +2.7%, Asians were up +2.4%. But the percentage of White voters who showed up at the polls relative to who was eligible dropped -1.1% . . . This has nothing to do with minorities making up more or less of the electorate. This is simply saying from 2004 to 2008 White voter registration (which actually dropped 104k) and actual turnout of White voters (which increased 500k) did not keep up with voting age White population increases.

The turnout problem for the GOP in 2008 was caused by John McCain. The question for political analysts is "Is Romney McCain Part II?"

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