Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Oprah Boosts Obama's Visibility; Republicans Applaud Romney Speech

December 13, 2007

Oprah Winfrey's well-publicized appearances with Barack Obama have raised his visibility, especially among African Americans. Roughly a quarter of Americans (26%) say they have heard more about Obama recently than any other presidential candidate, up from just 10% in November. Meanwhile, though Hillary Clinton remains the most visible candidate overall, the proportion citing her as the candidate they have heard the most about fell from a high of 61% in November to 41% in the current poll.

Far more African Americans cite Obama (51%) than cite Clinton (27%) as the candidate they have heard the most about recently. In November, these figures were roughly the reverse, with 50% naming Clinton and 15% Obama. Whites were also more likely to name Obama this month compared with last month, but the increase was not as great (23% this month up from 9% in November).

Oprah and Obama

Obama's increased visibility is no doubt linked to his campaign appearances with Winfrey. Fully 74% of the public could correctly identify Obama as the candidate Oprah had endorsed. Awareness of Winfrey's support for Obama was equally high across parties, genders and racial groups.

Most Americans view Winfrey's support for Obama as a plus for his campaign. Six-in-ten say her support will help his candidacy, only 1% thinks it will hurt his candidacy, and 31% say it will not make any difference. The same percentage said Winfrey's endorsement would help Obama in a September poll. Democrats, Republicans and Independents are all in agreement that Oprah's support for Obama will help not hurt his candidacy (64% of Democrats, 63% of Republicans, and 61% of Independents say it will help).

Romney, Religion and Republicans

The leading Republican candidates continue to lag behind Obama and Clinton in public visibility. Mitt Romney was named by just 5% as the candidate they heard the most about, despite Romney's highly anticipated speech about religion and politics on Dec. 6. Similarly, while Mike Huckabee has surged in the polls, just 5% name him as the candidate they have heard the most about. While both men are far less visible than the leading Democrats, this is an improvement for both Romney and Huckabee over November when just 1% named them as the most visible candidates.

As in the past, even Republicans are more likely to name Democratic candidates than GOP candidates when asked who they have been hearing the most about in the news. More than half of Republicans (56%) named a Democratic candidate while just 28% named a Republican candidate. The gap was even greater in November when more than three times as many Republicans pointed to a Democratic candidate rather than a GOP candidate as most visible (70% vs. 19%). In the current survey, 9% of Republicans name Romney as the most prominent candidate in the news, 8% mention Huckabee, while 7% cite Rudy Giuliani.

Most Americans say they have heard either a lot (31%) or a little (31%) about Romney's speech about his faith and politics; 37% heard nothing at all about the speech. Romney receives mixed reviews on the speech from those who had heard a least a little about it.

Nearly half (49%) who heard about the speech said Romney did an excellent or good job addressing the concerns some voters may have about his Mormon faith. Four-in-ten (39%) said he did only a fair or poor job. Republicans and GOP-leaning independents had a generally positive view of the speech; 60% thought Romney did an excellent or good job addressing voters' concerns about his faith, compared with 28% who thought he did a fair or poor job.

White Republican evangelical Protestants, as well as non-evangelicals, had positive reactions to Romney's speech. Majorities in both groups said Romney did an excellent or good job in addressing his faith; the differences in these views are not statistically significant.

Romney's speech, along with news of Huckabee's strength in the polls, were two of the dominant themes in campaign press coverage last week. Stories focusing mainly on the Republican candidates made up 46% of the campaign newshole, while stories focusing on the Democrats made up 36% of the newshole (15% of the stories focused equally on Republican and Democratic candidates).¹

The news of Huckabee's surge reached a large percentage of the public. Among Republicans, 54% were able to identify Huckabee as the GOP candidate who has been moving up in the polls recently. Four-in-ten Democrats (39%) knew Huckabee had improved his standing, as did 45% of independents.

These findings are based on the most recent installment of the weekly News Interest Index, an ongoing project of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Read the full report at people-press.org.

Notes

¹News coverage of the campaign was coded through December 7 and therefore does not include weekend coverage of Oprah Winfrey's campaign appearances with Barack Obama.