A couple of questions about polling

[EffieBlack]

I noticed that last night's - and previous - Demoratic primary exit polls are reported by the press this way:

Democratic Primary
Men
Women

White
Black

White men
White women

Why is it that the exit polling breaks down white voters between men and women, but doesn't break down black voters? Why are white voters treated as non-monolithic while black voters are just black?


By the same token, the Republican primary exit polling tends to be reported this way (as it was last night):

Republican Primary
Very Conservative
Somewhat Conservative
Moderate/Liberal

Evangelical Christians
All others

And why is that this same polling does not break down voters in Republican primaries by race? Yes, I know that the numbers would probably look like this: White 99.999% Black .001%. But shouldn't the media show these numbers anyway and, by failing to do so, aren't they giving the Republican candidates a pass since they consistently draw attention to how many black votes Democratic candidates attract, but never mention that the Republican candidates don't manage - and don't even bother trying - to attract any blak voters.

Just wondering.

[mohc]

1. If you look at the full data

They do breakdown Gender-Race combinations for both whites and blacks in Democratic contests, but there is less of a gender gap for blacks than whites. As for Republicans, if sample sizes are too small for any group, they will not report the breakdowns as there would be too much error. In most states there simply will be too little minority support in Republican contests to report racial breakdowns. If you look here, you will see gender-race breakdowns on page 4, and see the sample sizes were too low except for whites to report, and thats in the Democratic party. Even in Georiga, there were not enough blacks voting in the Republican contests to report.

[EffieBlack]

2. I'm not asking about the pollsters

I'm asking why the press only reports on these very limited numbers, as if black voters are one big monolith while white voters are broken down into additional categories - and they never report on the racial breakdown of Republican voters.