Birmingham View News Portal

Alabama Democratic Conference (“ADC”), the state’s leading Black political organization, had given its nod to Clinton.  ADC president and political king maker Joe Reed urged Blacks to vote for Clinton, saying America wasn't ready for a Black president.

 Meanwhile, the Alabama New South Coalition, the ADC's rival organization, placed its chips on Obama.

 Whether the Black vote will be enough for Obama to clinch a win in Alabama is still in question…

Now, there is no divide, said Rep. Arthur Davis (D-Birmingham), the first among Alabama's influential Black leaders to jump on the Illinois senator's presidential bandwagon.

“The Black community in Alabama is strongly rallying behind Barack Obama,” said Davis, chairman of Obama’s campaign in Alabama. The ADC will certainly squeeze out some votes for Sen. Clinton in smaller rural counties that don't get much exposure to national or even state media.  That's where the ADC has the strongest influence on voters.”

But in the state's urban and suburban areas, Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile, where Blacks constitute large blocks of Democratic voters, Davis predicts an easy win among Black voters by margins of 75 percent or more.

Obama now has 68 percent of the Black vote in Alabama, up from 54 percent within the past month, while Clinton's share of Black voters dropped from 20 percent to16 percent in the same period, according to a recently released poll by Capital Survey Research Center, the polling arm of the Alabama Education Association.

Among White Democrats, Clinton's share grew from 47 percent to 51 percent within the past month, while Obama's stayed the same at 17 percent, according to the poll.

Due to the shifting allegiance of Black voters, AEA polls, with a 5 percent margin of error, now give Obama a slight lead in Alabama over Clinton, 44 percent to 37 percent. 

The numbers are in sharp contrast from September, when she had 40 percent of Democratic voters compared to his 21 percent.

Whether the Black vote will be enough for Obama to clinch a win in Alabama is still in question, as he would also have to pull in at least a quarter of White voters, as he did in South Carolina.

 See BV video of Obama's Birmingham speech here