Polls show gender and race won't help, hurt candidates

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton's gender and Barack Obama's race will not give either candidate an advantage or disadvantage as they continue their quest to get the Democratic nomination for president, recent polls suggest.

With the Democratic race now narrowed down to two candidates, and the Super Duper Tuesday election that could determine the nominees less than a week away, the historic match-up could bring either the first female president or the first black president to the White House.

A poll conducted among registered voters in Utah this week, found that 35 percent of Republicans polled and 30 percent of Democrats said the fact that Clinton is a woman was neither an advantage or a disadvantage. Only 10 percent of Democrats thought it was "definitely an advantage" with Republicans at 9 percent according to the poll, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates for KSL Television and the Deseret Morning News.

Of those polled, 14 percent of Democrats said her gender was a disadvantage compared with 13 percent of Republicans.

Meanwhile, 35 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats said the Obama's racial background is neither an advantage or disadvantage either.

According to the same poll, 14 percent of Republicans said Obama's race was "definitely an advantage" compared to 9 percent of Republicans. It was "definitely a disadvantage" for only 4 percent of Republicans and 8 percent of Democrats.

A separate study of a Harris Poll, conducted by the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University, found that one third of the adults surveyed would be "angry or upset" if Obama were elected president. The poll was taken between Jan. 15 and 22 among 2,302 U.S. adults nationwide. It showed that just under 30 percent would have the same negative feelings if Clinton were elected.

Taking the specific candidates out of the equation, about 25 percent of those polled said they would be angry or upset if a woman was president while 9 percent would feel the same way with a black person in the Oval Office, according to the BYU results.

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