The right-leaning polling firm Rasmussen Reports dove into America’s views of race on Wednesday with a bizarre survey that concluded most of the nation thinks blacks are more likely to be racist than whites.
Going deeper into the poll’s crosstabs shows that 49 percent of Republicans believe “most black Americans (are) racist,” roughly the same percentage of Democrats (47 percent) who said the opposite. A third of Republicans said most black Americans are not racist, while only 11 percent of the GOP said that most white people are racist. Fifty-eight percent of respondents identified as “very conservative” said most blacks are racist, while a plurality of 44 percent “somewhat conservative” respondents said the same.
Rasmussen’s eye-popping top line was spelled out explicitly in the opening sentence of the poll’s write-up: “Americans consider blacks more likely to be racist than whites and Hispanics in this country.” According to the survey, 37 percent of Americans overall believe most blacks in the country are racist compared with 42 percent who said otherwise.
Far fewer Americans believe that most whites and Hispanics are racist, the poll found. A mere 15 percent said most white Americans are racist, a shade below the 18 percent who said most Hispanic Americans are racist. Seventy percent overall said most whites are not racist, while 54 percent rejected the notion that most Hispanic Americans are racist.
Fewer than a quarter of black Americans — 24 percent — said most white people are racist, a smaller share than the 31 percent of blacks who said most members of their own race are racist.
A study conducted by Fordham University rated Rasmussen as one of the least accurate pollsters of the 2012 election cycle.
