Did racism swing Super Tuesday?

In the aftermath of Super Tuesday, we've seen lots of analysis about what groups voted for Sens. Clinton and Obama. One of those is the "race gap," as evidence by the fact that Obama drew a resounding 82% of the African-American vote, compared to Clinton's 17% (and in turn, Latino voters heavily supported Clinton).

But what about those who voted AGAINST the candidates because of race? Or to put it another way, how did racism impact Super Tuesday?

John Wilson at the Huffington Post takes an interesting look at Democratic exit polls where voters were asked, "In deciding your vote for president today, was the gender[race] of the candidate a) The single most important factor; b) One of several important factor; c) Not an important factor."

Nationally, almost 3% (2.87%) of voters openly admitted that race was "the single most important factor" in their voting against Obama. Another 6.6% said that was "one of several important factors" in voting against Obama.

You can look at the state-by-state results here.

That means that 9.5% of the Democratic primary electorate were candid enough to admit that Obama's race was a factor in voting against him -- what Wilson calls the "total racist vote."

Given that (1) that's just the people who admitted they wouldn't support Obama because of his race, and (2) these are all Democrats, the party most African Americans identify with, these are troubling numbers, indeed.

Who said Obama isn't "black enough?" He is to those with racial prejudice.

Interesting sidenote: How does this stack up against "the sexist vote" -- those who say they voted against Clinton, wholly or in part because she's a woman? According to Wilson's analysis, that was 8% of Democratic voters on Super Tuesday.

The upshot: While sexism and racism are still both alive and well, at least this week racism had greater impact -- and as Wilson points out, likely cost Obama a few delegates.