Is Barack Obama ‘Black’? A Majority of Americans Say No.

President Obama made history in 2008 as the first African American president in U.S. history.

But according to data in a fascinating new Pew Research Center study, a majority of Americans describe the president as “mixed race,” while just more than a quarter (27 percent) call him “black.”

While whites and Hispanics are far more likely to describe Obama as “mixed race,” a strong majority of African Americans see him as black. And black voters voted in historically large numbers for Obama. He won 93 percent of the African American vote in 2012 and 95 percent among that group in 2008. (John Kerry won 88 percent of the black vote in 2004; Al Gore won 90 percent in 2000.)

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