A poll conducted by Yahoo in conjunction with Stanford University and the Associated Press of 2,227 adults from Aug. 27 to Sept. 5, found that racial misgivings could cost Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, the presidency in his bid for the White House. The poll found that 40 percent of white Americans including Dems and independents hold a less than favorable view of blacks. The poll was conducted to determine why Obama and Republican Candidate, John McCain, were still locked in a close race in spite of the political landscape being in favor of Democrats.

“There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn’t mean there’s only a few bigots,” - Paul Sniderman, Political Scientist, Stanford University.

According to the AP report, lots of Republicans have prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren’t voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn’t vote for any Democrat for president.  The poll found that more than race, many Dems and Independents questioned Obama’s competence for the job. Based on the poll, it was determined that Obama’s support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.

Poll participants were screened by telephone and conducted their poll online. Those without computers were supplied with them for the purposes of the poll. According to AP, studies show that people are more likely to report embarrassing behavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computer rather than talking to a stranger. Other techniques used in the poll included recording people’s responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen.

View Poll Results (pdf). The questions and results for this poll can also be found at http://news.yahoo.com/polls and http://surveys.ap.org. More technical information is available at http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/ganp/reviewer-info.html.