More than a third of all white Democrats agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, raising the question of how much racial misgivings could count in the presidential race if the election is close, according to an Associated Press/Ipsos poll conduct Aug. 27-Sept. 5.

But the poll also found other non-racial factors contributing to Barack Obama's difficulties in breaking away from opponent John McCain.

AP says the poll's statistical model indicates that Obama's support could be as much as 6 points higher if there were no racial prejudice. Among the third of white Democrats who agreed with at least one negative adjective, 58 percent said they would vote for Barack Obama.

"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Paul Sniderman, a political scientist at Stanford University with whom the poll was conducted.

While 79 percent of Republican delegates and 63 percent of Republican voters approve of President Bush's job performance, a plurality of delegates - 47 percent - say Bush has left the party in weaker shape and only 14 percent believe that it would help John McCain if Bush campaigned for him, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. The delegate survey was conducted July 23-Aug.26. The poll figures for overall voters were taken from a survey conducted Aug. 15-20.

An interesting finding in the poll is the difference on some questions between the views of Republican delegates and Republican voters at-large.

Thirty-eight percent of delegates would like to see McCain be more conservative than Bush, 14 percent said he should be less conservative, 13 percent said he should follow the same policies and 35 percent weren't sure. But asked whether they believed McCain would in fact turn out more conservative, a lesser 24 percent thought he would.

Barack Obama leads John McCain 47 percent to 41 percent in an AP-Ipsos poll conducted July 31-Aug. 4. The margin of error is 3.1 percent. McCain leads by 10 points among white voters and runs evenly with Obama among men. Obama leads by 13 points among women, 30 points among voters under the age of 34, and by 55 points among blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.