Artur Davis

Looking at the number of white voters who voted for Barack Obama in Alabama last year is not necessarily a good indicator of what kind of support Rep. Artur Davis might get in his ambition to become the state’s first black governor.

Governing.com’s Josh Goodman reports in his Ballot Box blog that a Birmingham-Southern political scientist has argued that Obama took 17% of the white vote in Alabama, not the 10% that exit polling reported. But Goodman says that while this “reflects somewhat positively on Davis’ chances for winning, although he’d need to do much better with white voters to win the election.”