There's No GOP Monopoly on Racists

For a few years now I've been arguing -- see, e.g., here, here, here, and here -- that (A) more Americans than you might think have negative racial attitudes but (B) these attitudes don't break down nicely along political-party lines. Over at The Atlantic, Robert P. Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute explains recent research that supports both of these claims.

Jones tried two different ways of asking white people whether they would have a problem with an America that's mostly nonwhite. First, he just outright asked it. Then, he sorted respondents into experimental and control groups, gave everyone a list of statements, and asked them how many statements they agreed with. The control group got three innocuous statements; the experimental group got the same statements, plus the one about a nonwhite America. Jones could infer support for the question about race from the results -- for example, if the experimental group agreed with 0.4 more statements on average, that suggests 40 percent agreed with the extra statement they were given.

Here's how the numbers came out for a variety of demographic groups when they were asked directly vs. indirectly. Republicans were more likely to admit outright that they wouldn't like a nonwhite America, but there's no difference between the parties when the question is asked indirectly:

Robert VerBruggen is editor of RealClearPolicy. Twitter: @RAVerBruggen