3% to 5%
A new Harvard research paper concludes that “racial animus” cost President Obama three to five percentage points of the popular vote in the 2008 presidential election. Racial bias was found in two ways: Some Democrats stayed home rather than vote for Obama and a similar number who wouldn’t have voted turned out for Sen. John McCain. However, that was partially offset by an increase in turnout among black voters. “The cost of racial animus was not decisive in the 2008 election. But a four percentage point loss by the winning candidate would have changed the result in the majority of post-war presidential elections.”
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