Sen. Obama’s support among whites is as strong as Sen. Kerry’s in 2004

There’s been a lot of talk recently about “working class whites” not supporting Sen. Obama come the general election; however, as Gallup Poll reminds us, in recent years, the default position for white Americans has tended to be to support the republican party, over the Democratic party, and this trend may not be different this election cycle.

However, it is worth noting, as Gallup does, that at this point, Sen. Obama is doing as well among white Americas as Sen. Kerry did back in 2004:

PRINCETON, NJ — Barack Obama’s current level of support among white voters in a head-to-head matchup against John McCain is no worse than John Kerry’s margin of support among whites against George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

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But it appears that the way Obama stacks up against McCain at this point is similar to the way in which Kerry performed against Bush in 2004 within several key racial, educational, religious, and gender subgroups. That is, the basic underlying structure of the general-election campaign this year does not appear to be markedly different from that of the 2004 election. This conclusion is based on an analysis of exit-poll data from 2004 compared to the Obama-McCain matchup in 4,000 Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviews conducted during the first five days of May.