Voters 'still divided by race'

Washington - American voters remain divided by race before a presidential election that will have the first black nominee from a major party on the ballot, a new poll showed on Wednesday.

Blacks and whites hold much different views of Democrat Barack Obama, who is vying to be the first African-American commander-in-chief, as well as the state of US race relations, according to the New York Times/CBS poll.

Black and white voters do agree that the country is ready to elect a black president, but disagree on other questions about race, said the survey published on Wednesday.

More than 80% of black voters said they had a favourable opinion of the Illinois senator while 31% of whites said they had a favourable opinion of him, the poll said.

Black voters were more likely than whites to say that Obama cares about the needs and problems of people like them, and more likely to describe him as patriotic.

Whites were more likely than blacks to say that Obama says what he thinks people want to hear rather than what he truly believes.

Obama's wife, Michelle, enjoyed more support among black voters than whites. She was viewed favourably by 58% of blacks, compared with 24% of white voters, the survey said.

The poll also showed Obama with a strong lead over McCain among Hispanic voters, a crucial voting bloc that Obama failed to win over during his Democratic party nomination battle with Senator Hillary Clinton.

Obama has a lead

Obama leads McCain among Hispanics by 62 to 23%. He is viewed favourably by more than half of Hispanics, while McCain's rating is below one-quarter.

Three national polls published on Tuesday showed Obama with a lead over McCain but voters still trust McCain more to lead the country in the face of a major crisis.

Less than four months before the November 4 presidential election, Democrat Obama held a lead of six to eight points among registered voters in the three surveys, including the New York Times/CBS survey.

In results similar to a previous poll carried out for the New York Times eight years ago, few Americans say they have regular contact with people of other races and their workplaces and neighbourhoods tend not to be integrated.

Fifty-nine percent of blacks said race relations were generally bad, with only 34% of whites supporting that view.

Four in 10 blacks said there has been no progress in recent years in eliminating racial discrimination, compared to fewer than two in 10 whites.

About one-quarter of whites said they thought that too much had been made of racial obstacles confronting black people. Half of black respondents said not enough had been made of racial barriers.

More than 40% of blacks said they believed they had been stopped by the police because of their race, compared to only seven percent of whites.

The poll was carried out July 7-14 with 1 796 adults, and has a margin of error of three percentage points.

- SAPA