According to a February Gallup poll, a greater percentage of Americans are willing to vote for a black president than for a woman president.
The Gallup poll asked participants if they would be willing to vote for a candidate meeting each of a set of characteristics including Mormon, septuagenarian, Latino, and gay. 94% of respondents indicated they would vote for a black candidate, while a smaller 88% indicated the same for a woman candidate.
The poll's options seem to specifically call out the outstanding characteristics of many of the front line of 2008 presidential candidates, with its inclusion of social groups such as black (Obama), female (Clinton) and Latino (Richardson); certain religions such as Catholic (Giuliani) and Mormon (Romney); and lifestyles such as "married for the third time" (Kucinich).
Gays and atheists rounded out the bottom of the chart, with 55% and 45% respectively. For atheists, these numbers would seem to support a 2006 University of Minnesota study that found atheists to be the least trusted minority in America of a set of groups similar to that of the Gallup poll.
Despite the fact that atheists polled lowest of all the groups, the Christian triumphalist World Net Daily used the Gallup poll to drum up fear of an atheist takeover.
Mormon candidates polled in the middle of the results at 72%, 15 points under Latino.