Black vote could help swing key states to Obama

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Black Americans could vote in record numbers for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, potentially giving him an edge in some states that are tightly contested with Republican rival John McCain.

Blacks make up around 12 percent of the voting population and are the Democratic Party's most reliable ethnic constituency, although historically they have voted in lower numbers than other groups.

This year, opinion polls show that more than 90 percent of blacks who vote could cast a ballot for Obama, in part because of racial solidarity with a candidate who would be the first black president in U.S. history.

"There is every indication that black turnout in 2008 will surpass all existing records both nationally and in individual states," said a report this week by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

That impact likely will be felt in states where there is a significant black minority such as Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana, though analysts say it is unclear whether the black vote alone will tip the balance in any one state.

Obama, whose father was black and mother was white, has a significant lead over McCain in opinion polls ahead of the November 4 election to choose a successor to President George W. Bush, a Republican who has been in the White House for eight years.

Obama's status as the first black candidate of a major party appears to have dramatized his core message of change.

"We are looking at the first black president this country has ever had. That's a positive because he is going to make history," said Bill Craven, 51, who runs an office furniture business in Norcross, Georgia.

Craven described himself as a disgruntled Republican who voted for Bush but plans to vote for Obama in part because he thinks McCain would likely continue Bush's policies. Race played little or no role in his decision, he said.

But some Democrats say that in a country with stark disparities between blacks and whites in measures of health, education and income, race could undermine support for Obama.

They point to a California governor's race in 1982 when some white voters appeared to conceal from pollsters their intention not to vote for a black candidate to argue that overall support for Obama could be inflated.

EARLY VOTING

U.S. presidential candidates rarely court one racial group or another, instead aiming to couch their policies in terms that can cut across class, race, religion and geography.

But most blacks side with the Democratic Party because they identify with its social policies and give it credit for the passage of 1960s civil rights laws under a Democratic president, which finally ended segregation.

"That would be the key way in which race could help (Obama) -- as a mobilizing factor among African Americans," said Michael Dimock, associate director of the Pew Research Center.

One sign of increased black turnout is in early voting.

In Georgia, a state that normally votes Republican in presidential elections, around 35 percent of people who turned out early to vote are black, according to state election officials.

That reflects a strategy to persuade people to vote early in states where it is possible, said Jon Carson, national field director of the Obama campaign, adding that there was no special effort to target blacks for early voting.

Blacks were the group most likely to be affected by problems in trying to vote on polling day in 2004, said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

He cited isolated examples of voter intimidation in 2004 as well as a lack of equipment at some polling stations in neighborhoods with a high black population.

"Compared to last time, there are significantly more African Americans who are voting early," Bositis said, adding that this election had "special meaning."

(Editing by Tom Brown and John O'Callaghan)