Bad news for Michael S. Steele, the leading Maryland Republican candidate for Senate in November: The scuttling noise he hears on Election Day could be the sound of tens of thousands of white Republicans crossing over to vote for the Democrat.
In fact, white Republicans nationally are 25 percentage points more likely on average to vote for the Democratic senatorial candidate when the GOP hopeful is black, says economist Ebonya Washington of Yale University in a forthcoming article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. White independents are similarly inclined to vote for the white Democrat when there's a black Republican running, according to her study of congressional and gubernatorial voting patterns between 1982 and 2000, including five Senate races (more)
This doesn't portend well for Lynn Swann's run for govenor here in PA. Ed Rendell already has a lock on SE PA and Philly proper. If Swann loses 25% of the white Republicans statewide due to race prejudice I think that would cook his goose.
I admit to thinking that Rendell should be re-elected, entirely on the merits of the job he's been doing, but winning because a bunch of bigots won't vote for an African American sticks in my craw.
I admit to thinking that Rendell should be re-elected, entirely on the merits of the job he's been doing, but winning because a bunch of bigots won't vote for an African American sticks in my craw.
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