Obama presidency has fallen short of hopes on racial issues: Gallup

Americans are far less positive today about what Barack Obama's presidency means for the advancement of blacks in the U.S. than they were shortly after his election eight years ago, found a Gallup poll Thursday.

Currently, 32 percent of respondents say Obama's presidency is one of the most important advances for blacks in the past 100 years, a sharp drop from 71 percent immediately after he was elected and 58 percent nine months into his first term.

The poll comes at a time when racial tensions have soured due to a number of recent high profile killings of black men by white police officers, and the murder of eight white police officers by two black gunmen in the states of Louisiana and Texas in July.

Americans had high hopes for what the first black president could accomplish, particularly on matters of race. But now, Americans believe black-white relations are much worse now than earlier in his presidency, Gallup said.

The public may not necessarily fault Obama for those problems, as roughly half have consistently approved of how he has handled race relations throughout his time in office. But it is clear that the optimism Americans initially had for a black president's ability to improve race relations and the situation for blacks has long since faded, Gallup said.

The decline in perceived significance of Obama's election and presidency is evident among both blacks and whites, though blacks remain more positive overall.

In October 2009, 71 percent of blacks considered Obama's election as one of the most important advances for blacks. But today, that number has plummeted to 51 percent. Among whites, the percentage has declined from 56 percent to 27 percent, Gallup found.

These results are based on Gallup's 2016 Minority Rights and Relations poll, conducted June 7-July 1, just before a renewed round of deadly racial incidents between police and black men in early July.

Whites, by more than a 2-to-1 margin, now say race relations are worse rather than better. Blacks are more charitable in their evaluation of the effect of Obama's presidency on U.S. race relations, but they are divided on whether things are better or worse. Both blacks' and whites' opinions are more pessimistic than they were in October 2009, nine months into Obama's presidency, Gallup found.

During Obama's presidential campaign in 2008, there were questions about how his racial background might affect the policies Obama pursued as president. One such question was how a black president could balance a desire to aid the black community with the need to pursue policies designed to help Americans of all races and ethnicities, Gallup noted.

From the time Obama was campaigning in 2008 until now, only between 21 percent and 26 percent of Americans have been concerned that his policies would go, or have gone, too far to help blacks, Gallup said.

Initially, far fewer were concerned that his policies would not go far enough, but that has changed. Now, 33 percent say his policies haven't gone far enough, up from 8 percent immediately after his election and 18 percent during his first year in office, Gallup said.

Blacks have never expressed much concern that Obama's policies would go too far in aiding the black community.

However, blacks' opinions have shifted from viewing Obama's policies to help blacks as "about right" to "not going far enough."

Currently, 52 percent of blacks say his policies have not gone far enough, up from 20 percent during the 2008 campaign and 32 percent his first year in office, Gallup found. Endit