Poll: GOP success with black voters in doubt

updated 10:15 p.m. ET Oct. 31, 2006

WASHINGTON - So much for the Republican charm offensive toward minorities.

Black voters are far less likely to approve of the way President Bush is doing his job than voters generally and they are more likely to feel that the country is on the wrong track, disheartening news for a Republican Party that has been trying to curry favor with minority voters in recent years.

In what could be a particularly bad sign for Republicans in next week’s midterm elections, black voters also are more likely to say that the Iraq war was a mistake and that recent disclosures of scandal and corruption in Congress will be very important to their vote, according to an Associated Press-AOL Black Voices poll conducted Oct. 23 through Monday.

Black voters have historically voted Democratic, and their votes are critical to Democratic hopes to win tight Senate contests in Tennessee, Missouri and Virginia.

Unhappiness among black voters is reflected by L.C. Washington, a 41-year-old Democratic graduate student from Montgomery, Ala., who says Bush is “the worst president in history,” not to mention “the dumbest president I’ve ever seen — he’s the devil.” Washington lays blame for a laundry list of ills at the Republican Party’s doorstep.

“Republicans are trying to win over black voters,” says Washington, but “not doing a good job. Doing a poor job — the war, gas prices, job losses and the layoffs.”

Even among black Republicans, there clearly still is work for the GOP to do.

“I don’t think Republicans are doing any kind of reaching out to African-Americans,” said 71-year-old L.D. Harper of Springfield Gardens, N.Y., who’s been a Republican since he was 18.

Misgivings with Democrats too
While black voters say Republicans have done a poor job of representing their interests, they also have misgivings about the Democratic Party. Almost half of black voters said the Democratic Party takes their vote for granted; about a third said the party has done a poor job of representing their interests.

Gail Burton / AP Michael Steele, right, Maryland Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, standing with boxing promoter Don King, talks with UMAR Boxing and Youth Development Center director Marvin McDowell in this Oct. 16 photo while campaigning in Baltimore.

About a fourth of blacks said they weren’t confident their votes would be counted accurately.

On the issues, black voters were most likely to rate the economy and health care as extremely or very important to them personally.

The AP-AOL Black Voices telephone poll of 900 black adults, 361 of whom are likely voters, was conducted by Ipsos.

The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 5 percentage points for the black likely voters.

The overall likely voter results are from an AP-AOL poll released last week.

About nine of 10 black voters have gone for the Democrats in recent elections.

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