Obama gets scant white support in MS

Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., shakes hands before he speaking at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., Monday, March 10, 2008. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON—Whites largely shunned Barack Obama in Mississippi's Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday as the Deep South showed once again its reluctance to embrace him across racial lines.

While 92 percent of blacks lined up behind the Illinois senator, 70 percent of whites supported Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to an exit poll of voters conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.

Only next door in Alabama and in Arkansas, where she was first lady when husband Bill Clinton was governor, has she had a wider margin among whites, while his black support has been stronger only in his home state. That made Mississippi's voting one of the year's most racially divided contests.

That division was all Obama needed because voters were split about evenly between the two races.

While Obama has typically received lopsided numbers of black votes and Clinton, a New York senator, generally has won among whites, Tuesday's racial polarization was stark.

Nearly four in 10 blacks said race was important in choosing their candidate. Of that group, nine in 10 supported Obama.

Among whites, a quarter said they considered race when deciding their vote. Eight in 10 of them voted for Clinton.

White men and women voted about equally strongly for Clinton. While she has consistently dominated among white women this year, the two have split the allegiance of white men about evenly overall and Obama has had solid strong performances with them since the Super Tuesday voting on Feb. 5.

Clinton did better than usual with white groups with whom she usually prevails, including those who are less educated, earn the least and are older. She also prevailed with white voters Obama usually captures, including college-educated men, independents and those under age 45.

While Obama has at times shown signs of eroding Clinton's support among whites, that was not the case Tuesday or last week in Ohio and Texas, contests that helped her regain some momentum in the race.

Overall, two-thirds of Mississippi Democrats voiced contentment with Obama as the eventual nominee. Six in 10 said they would be satisfied with Clinton.

Just over half said they thought Obama should pick Clinton as his vice presidential running mate, and about an equal number said she should pick Obama. Obama was viewed as the more inspirational, the more honest and likelier to defeat Republican Sen. John McCain in November.

Obama's supporters, though, had more favorable views of Clinton than hers did of him.

Four in 10 Obama supporters said they would be satisfied if Clinton wins the nomination, while only a quarter of hers said the same about Obama. And while almost half of Obama's voters said Clinton has offered detailed plans to address the major issues, only a quarter of Clinton backers said the same about Obama.

On the Republican side, McCain -- who has locked up his party's nomination -- easily carried loyal Republicans, conservatives and white, born-again and evangelical Christians. Yet nearly one in five said they were dissatisfied with him as the nominee, while four in 10 said he is not conservative enough.

The figures came from a survey of voters conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. Voters were interviewed at 35 voting places across Mississippi.

Those interviewed included 1,667 Democrats and 613 Republicans. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 4 percentage points for Democrats and plus or minus 6 percentage points for Republicans.