Plurality of Mississippi GOP Think Interracial Marriage Should Be Illegal

PPP surveyed Mississippi Republican voters, and it turns out most of them aren't shy about letting random people who call them up on the phone at dinner know how racist they are. Just 40% of them said interracial marriage should be legal, whereas 46% forcefully said it should be illegal. It's a sign that Mississippi has made a lot of progress over the years: Some white people are now willing to admit they don't think the government should keep the races separate. And because PPP also asked about the presidential nomination, it's interesting to see who these haters support. It turns out people who think interracial marriage should be illegal like one candidate especially: Sarah Palin.

Palin's net favorability with folks who think interracial marriage should be illegal (+55 at 74/19) is 17 points higher than it is with folks who think interracial marriage should be legal (+38 at 64/26.) Meanwhile Romney's favorability numbers see the opposite trend. He's at +23 (53/30) with voters who think interracial marriage should be legal but 19 points worse at +4 (44/40) with those who think it should be illegal.

Mike Huckabee does pretty well with the anti-interracial marriage crowd too. Perhaps that was the key issue that was holding him back from securing the GOP nomination in 2008. "It's the white people marrying colored people/economy, stupid!"

Before you judge, though, these Mississippians have perfectly good reasons to ban marriage between people who don't happen to be the same race:

"I believe God made us a different color for a reason and should be honored by not marrying outside of the race that God picked for me, however the color of one's skin does not make him/her better than another color."

God made people different colors so they'd be easier to organize! That's all! Stop messing up his organization system. He gets really OCD when his things are messed up. So quit loving each other, people who don't look the same! [ PPP ]