While a large majority of Americans say racism is a serious problem in the wake of last month's shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, Republicans are less inclined than others to say so.
According to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, 77 percent of Americans nationally say that racism is a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem. Twenty-one percent say it's a "not very serious" or "not at all serious" problem.
But just 57 percent of Republicans say racism is at least a somewhat serious problem, compared to 93 percent of Democrats and 72 percent of independents who say the same. Although Republicans are equally as likely as the rest of the country to put the problem of racism in the "somewhat serious" category, they're far less likely to say it is "very serious": 19 points less likely than Americans as a whole, 36 points less than Democrats and 14 points less than independents.
Even among white Americans, the gap in opinion persists between Democrats and Republicans. Fifty-two percent of white Democrats say racism is a "very serious" problem, compared to 17 percent of white Republicans and 26 percent of white independents.
A recent CNN poll that asked a similar question produced almost the same results, with Republicans 37 points less likely than Democrats to say racism poses at least a "somewhat serious" problem. The results mark the highest percentage of Americans to acknowledge racism as a problem that CNN has recorded since it began asking the question in 2008.
The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted June 24-29 among U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the poll's methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov's reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.
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