Race and Religion at the Ballot Box: Building a Better Bias Detector

A study by political scientist Brian F. Schaffner at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the December issue of Political Psychology showed that concerns about race may have meant that Obama procured 3 percent less of the vote than he would have if he were white—enough to decide an election in a close race. “It’s pretty clear that if Obama were white he would have done better than he did,” Schaffner says.