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The Fragility of Racial Transcendence: An Analysis of Oprah Winfrey's Endorsement of the Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign

Harwood K. McClerking Department of Africology

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Chryl Laird Department of Government and Legal Studies

Bowdoin University

Ray Block Jr. Political Science Department and African American & Africana Studies Program

University of Kentucky

Accepted at American Politics Research

PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHORS’ PERMISSION

ABSTRACT (148 words)

We define racial transcendence as an elevated status in which evaluations of an individual are no

longer shaped by the race of the attitudinal target, or the race of the person making the

evaluations. Observers argue that Oprah Winfrey transcends race, meaning that she is just as

likely to receive support from non-Blacks as she is from fellow Blacks. But this argument may

not follow when Oprah moves into the political arena. We use two surveys to demonstrate this:

the first survey supports Winfrey’s transcendence while we see in-group support in the second.

We find that Oprah enjoys her greatest support among racial fellows, and her favorability flows

along the lines of race and gender: her greatest supporters are Black women. Oprah’s ability to

offer political cues also flows along lines of race and gender: those most likely to be influenced

by her Obama endorsement are Black women.

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Keywords and Phrases: Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Racial Transcendence, Public Opinion

INTRODUCTION

Combatting and, hopefully, conquering racial discrimination is a long-standing goal of

African Americans. The dynamics of this goal are perhaps best captured for the imagination of

all Americans by Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963. One tenet of

the escape from discrimination is Dr. King’s idea that Blacks would be judged by the “content of

their character” and not by their skin color. Thus, we can see the template set up for racial

transcendence, the ideal that race should not be a detriment to Black success and that Blacks

could presumably achieve success with the full support of non-Blacks (as opposed to gaining

success in spite of non-Blacks). More specifically, we define “racial transcendence” as an

elevated status in which African Americans are no longer consistently evaluated by others

through the lens of race, and, even more importantly, that the racial identity of those doing the

evaluating no longer influences their views of African Americans. Black people have yet to

achieve this ideal as a group, even as certain African-American individuals have presumably

achieved such status for extended periods of time (Bobo & Charles, 2009; Kinder &

McConnaughy, 2006).

One such African American is Oprah Winfrey, whose status as a popular talk-show host

and media mogul allows her frequent opportunities to transcend race, meaning that she is just as

likely in those circumstances to receive support from out-group members (Whites) as she would

from in-group members (Blacks). In this article, we complicate portions of that interpretation.

Here, we reveal a particular fragility of Oprah’s racial transcendence by showing that, once she

stepped away from the world of entertainment and into the realm of politics, Ms. Winfrey was no

longer as able to transcend race consistently. Using evidence from multiple public opinion

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surveys, we demonstrate that Oprah, as an advocate for Barack Obama during the 2008

presidential campaign, lost her previous state of transcendence to then find her greatest support

among racial in-group members. Of great importance, we demonstrate that the logic revealed by

the seminal Philpot and Walton (2007) article—i.e., that voters are attracted to politicians who

share their intersectional identities—seems to have an analogue here. Oprah Winfrey’s non-

transcendent support flows along the lines of race and gender: her greatest supporters are Black

women. And we demonstrate that, when non-transcendent, her ability to offer political cues also

flows on lines of race and gender: those most likely to be influenced by her Obama endorsement

are African American women.

THE ARGUMENT FOR OPRAH WINFREY’S TRANSCENDENCE OF RACE

Oprah Winfrey, circa the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, was an intriguing American

phenomenon. Oprah Winfrey had become a major popular culture icon due to the success of her

talk show and subsequent programs, movies, magazines, and philanthropic projects (Goldman,

2007). By 2007 The Oprah Winfrey Show had been the number one talk show for 21 consecutive

seasons (see also “Oprah and Whitney Houston” 2009). The show was seen by an estimated 7

million viewers a day in the United States (Anburajan, 2007). According to the 2008 Harris Poll,

Oprah Winfrey had ranked in the top three of favorite television personalities between 1993-

2008 (Shannon-Missal, 2016). Winfrey maintained the number one status as favorite personality

consecutively from 2002 through 2006.1

Winfrey’s widespread appeal is also demonstrated by examining the demographic

makeup of her television audience around the 2008 election cycle. According to Nielsen Media

1 In 2007 she dropped to the number two position behind TV personality Ellen DeGeneres.

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research described in Anburajan (2007) Winfrey’s television audience was predominantly

female, White and over the age of 55. Winfrey achieved her highest ratings from the older

female demographic: women made up 2.7 million of the 3.7 million people over the age of 55

watching her show. At this time, eleven percent of older Black women and 7 percent of older

White women watched the show everyday. Across all age groups and genders 5.9 million Whites

watched her program compared to 1.4 million Blacks and approximately one quarter million

Hispanics (Anburajan, 2007).

Scholars have speculated as to how Winfrey has achieved such mass appeal across

demographics, particularly her popularity among White women. Some argue that it is due to her

persistent ability to transcend her race. Janice Peck’s work from two decades ago on the source

and complexity of Oprah Winfrey’s ability to attain and potentially lose racial transcendence is

the seminal, and still most relevant, conceptualization of this topic.2 Peck (1994) cites a well-

known Black periodical on this transcendence point: “Ebony magazine stated in 1991 that a

handful of black entertainers like Winfrey, Bill Cosby, and Arsenio Hall have managed to

‘transcend race’ in terms of their mass appeal” (91). Peck also gives us other scholars’

interpretation of what it means to transcend race. “In their study of Cosby viewers, Jhally and

Lewis (1992) suggest that such transcendence involves white viewers overlooking the fact that

the cast is African-American, identifying with the Huxtables instead as a ‘typical American

family’” (Peck, 1994: 91). Peck agrees with this interpretation, adding “My preliminary

interviews with female viewers of Oprah Winfrey indicate a similar pattern… white viewers say

Winfrey’s race is ‘not important’ to them” (91).

2 Peck has continued to study and discuss Winfrey in more recent works (see, e.g., Peck, 2008); however, her more recent works deal with Oprah’s racial meaning, writ large, to American democracy and are therefore, we wish to argue, not necessarily germane to our discussion here.

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As one can easily see in the previous paragraph, “racial transcendence” has a variety of

interpretations and possible definitions. The Black periodical that Peck (1994) cites above,

Ebony magazine, uses the idea of “transcending race” to mean “Black success” among Black and

White audiences at certain times. “Cosby, Hall, and Winfrey are just three of the growing

number of Black TV personalities-…- who command the attention of both White and Black

viewers. Each of these individuals brings an authoritative presence and an ability to transcend

race to television” (“Television,” 1991: 52). It is obvious from the use of transcendence in Black

media that transcendence, like “popularity” and other public opinion-based rubrics, is transitory

and influenced by the public’s tastes at that time. For example, both Bill Cosby and Arsenio

Hall—people who once had the luxury of being both extremely popular and favorably judged, as

King suggests, “by the content of their character” —have presumably fallen, for varying reasons,

from the ranks of the racially transcendent since the 1990s.

The other interpretations garnered above from Peck (1994) focus less on the people being

judged and more on the judges themselves. Specifically, these interpretations employ the ideas

that racial transcendence is Whites “overlooking” Blackness and/or finding that a Black person’s

race is “not important” at that point in time to the White observer. One of the main ideas that

Kinder & McConnaughy (2006) offer on racial transcendence is this interpretation of

transcendence: An individual is racially transcendent if an observer's racial attitudes do not

predict that observer’s assessment of that individual. Kinder and McConnaughy offer a useful

way of framing transcendence, and we generalize the interpretation of Kinder and McConnaughy

by defining “racial transcendence” this way in this paper: An individual is racially transcendent

if an observer’s race does not predict (or otherwise strongly factor into) that

observer’s assessment of that individual at the time of measurement. When combined, these sets

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of interpretations characterize transcendence as a status in which evaluations of an individual are

no longer strongly shaped by i) the race of the individual, or ii) the race of the person making the

assessment of the individual.

Peck (1994) identifies the presumed mechanism or basis for Ms. Winfrey’s achieved state

of transcendence. Peck argues that Oprah’s presumed racial transcendence rests on her ability to

serve “as a comforting, nonthreatening bridge between black and white culture” (91). This

obviously fragile bridging function is built on foundations of Oprah’s previous minimizing of

race through “public rejection of black political activism and the Civil Rights Movement” and

her gender, “because black women are seen by many whites as less threatening than are black

men” (91).

Oprah Winfrey’s presumed racial transcendence was put to the test in May 2007 when

she “officially” endorsed the presidential candidate, Barack Obama, the then-junior U.S. Senator

from the state of Illinois (Zeleny, 2007). We say “officially endorsed” since Oprah had

professed to like Obama as a potential candidate in late 2006, but Obama was not running for

president at the time (Winfrey, 2006).3 Other Black mega-celebrities had endorsed political

candidates before, but it seemed as if those efforts were fruitless. Michael Jordan, for example,

endorsed Bill Bradley in 2000 and appeared in a commercial for the unsuccessful Bradley

campaign (Mastony, 2007). There were concerns over the possible ineffectiveness of

endorsements in general and fears of a financial cost from endorsement backlash for celebrities

3 Endorsements are thought to be useful to voters, mainly through their use as heuristic guides. The use of heuristics allows individuals to make decisions and evaluate messages without having to “…engage in extensive deliberation regarding the merit of each particular claim” (Mondak, 1993: 170). Individuals are able to be informed about political events or issues without having a large body of political knowledge. The research conducted on heuristics has demonstrated that they are useful for judgments in a variety of political contexts (Arceneaux & Kolodny, 2009; Brady & Sniderman, 1985; Dawson, 1994; Iyengar, 1990; Lupia, 1994; Sniderman, Brody, & Tetlock, 1991; Tverksy & Kahneman, 1974). Within the context of elections, heuristics serve a vital purpose for voters that are being bombarded with information from numerous sources. Lau and Redlawsk (2001) argue that endorsements are one of the five commonly employed heuristics that are used by voters.

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(Mastony, 2007). Regardless, Winfrey forged ahead with her public support of candidate Barack

Obama. Other scholars have measured the presumed effectiveness of Oprah Winfrey’s

endorsement on Americans as a political tool (Garthwaite & Moore, 2013; 2007; Pease &

Brewer, 2008), and scholars have commented on the possibility of Oprah’s popularity suffering

after her endorsement (Panagopoulos, 2008). Our focus is not on the electoral implications of

Oprah’s endorsement per se, but rather, determining how her endorsement’s may have affected

her racial transcendence. Here, we test two hypotheses concerning Oprah Winfrey’s favorability

in the wake of her endorsement of then-Senator Barack Obama. First, if she is truly racially

transcendent, Whites should continue to view Oprah Winfrey just as favorably as Blacks do.

Second, if she is racially transcendent, Winfrey’s endorsement of Obama should have a similar

effect on Whites’ and Blacks’ evaluations of her.

Our hypotheses represent clear and simple tests of racial transcendence. But that is just

the point. Racial transcendence is an idealized state that is likely to be both fleeting and fragile.

Like Peck, we argue that racial transcendence has clear limitations, and a popular figure who is

transcendent in one context may quickly lose it in another context. Therefore, we propose that

the appearance of racial transcendence has obvious limitations, and that an individual’s

transcendence is context-dependent. One clear expectation, drawn from the extant literature, is

that racial transcendence is far more fragile when popular figures enter a realm far different from

the realm where the aura of transcendence was generated. In the case of Oprah Winfrey, that

different realm would be politics.

THE ARGUMENT FOR THE CONTINUED RELEVANCE OF INGROUP IDENTITIES

IN ASSESSMENTS OF OPRAH WINFREY

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Winfrey’s entry into politics through her endorsement of Obama should have affected her

ability to transcend race in the eyes of the public, given the non-threatening and non-political

foundations of her persistent appeal to Whites. Racial transcendence by Blacks can be, and

arguably, should be very fragile (Peck, 1994). For example, Winfrey’s White viewers were more

likely to notice Winfrey’s race when the show featured discussions of racism (Peck, 1994: 91).

In an interview from December 2007, Peck argued that Winfrey is able to surpass race because

she is able “...to appeal to a majority-white audience by being black culturally but not being

black politically” (Mastony, 2007). The impact of Winfrey’s political endorsement of Obama

was similar to that of her discussions of racism. Multiple sources, such as the Chicago Tribune,

worried about whether Oprah’s move to endorse any candidate (especially a Black man over a

White woman) would divide her viewers (Cockcroft, 2008; Mastony, 2007; Scott, 2007).

Moreover, loyal viewers discussed their displeasure with Winfrey’s political involvement.

According to Mastony (2007): one fan argued, “I feel like [Oprah] is trying to sway her mass

following. It’s like telling us that Obama is the only one.” Another female fan was so angry

about the endorsement that she stopped watching the show. This fan argued that the

endorsement “…puts a wedge between her and others. To me, it’s a divisive move” (Mastony,

2007).

Winfrey’s movement toward electoral politics placed her in a non-transcendent position

where she was then being viewed through a dual lens by the public. Due to her intersecting

identity people were most likely to view the now “politically-Black Oprah” through lenses of

race (Blackness) and gender (female). When she presumably chose to identify with race over

gender (through her overt endorsement of Barack Obama and not Hillary Clinton) this created a

division that fell along both race and gender lines, thus damaging Oprah’s fragile transcendence

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further. We argue that, as a result of this division, the people who are most likely to be

influenced by such a non-transcendent endorsement are those that also fall into the same area of

race/gender intersectionality as Winfrey: Black women.

Philpot and Walton (2007) make an analogous argument to Winfrey’s non-transcendent

intersectionality in their discussion of Black female representation. Specifically, Philpot and

Walton (2007) argue that historically Black women have been marginalized by the Black

community and the female struggle for equality (see Collins, 1990; Crenshaw, 2012). As a

result, Black women reside in a space where they are “doubly bounded”; this has led to the

cultivation of a Black female consciousness (Gay & Tate, 1998). Philpot and Walton contend

that voters have hierarchical candidate preferences that are determined by their own group

membership (see also McClerking, 2008). As a result, voters’ demographic resemblance to the

candidate is essential: the closer in resemblance voters are to a candidate on America’s two

heavily weighted categories of race and gender, the more likely voters are to support said

candidate. Extending this argument to Black female representation Philpot and Walton assert

that, “…black women will be the greatest supporters of black female candidates, while white

men would be the least supportive of black female candidates” (53). Furthermore, the authors

argue that because racial group consciousness tends to have a stronger effect than gender

consciousness, Black men will be more supportive of Black female candidates than White

women.

This conceptualization of Black female group consciousness articulated by Philpot and

Walton (2007) can be applied to a non-transcendent Winfrey’s endorsement and the way it has

been possibly perceived by Blacks and Whites. Winfrey’s major appeal as a transcendent Black

person traditionally was to a female audience that is predominantly White. By racially

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transcending, her primary identity is related heavily to her gender in the eyes of her White

female viewers, and her racial identity diminishes. Transcendence is inherently fragile, and the

act of endorsing the Black male candidate (Obama) over the White female (Clinton) obviously

endangers transcendence. Consequently, Winfrey’s actions could have alienated her White

female audience. Thus, her endorsement should be the most influential among Black women

because they are closer in resemblance to Winfrey on these two dimensions than any other group

(Black men, White women and White men). This conceptualization of Black female

consciousness inspires hypotheses that counter those deduced from the more hopeful version of

racial transcendence discussed earlier. First, Black women are more favorable of Oprah Winfrey

to any other combination of race (Black or White) and gender. Secondly, Oprah Winfrey’s

endorsement of Obama will have a greater influence on Black women than other race/gender

combinations.

HYPOTHESES

We test two sets of expectations in this article, as we are basically setting up the

following expectations throughout the paper: in the same Black person, transcendence can be in

effect (“ON”) or transcendence could not be in effect (“OFF”). Being able to gain racial

transcendence is a rare and extraordinary accomplishment for Blacks, but it does occur

occasionally. We have of course been examining one particular Black person who is believed to

demonstrate this trait on occasion. We have also detailed one of the expected points where a

Black person can lose their transcendence: sticking one’s neck out to endorse a Black

candidate. The structure for interracial perceptual dynamics toward a Black individual is driven

by whether transcendence is ON (then you get the normally unexpected result of equal

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admiration from Blacks and Whites) or by whether transcendence is OFF (then you see for Black

women the Philpot and Walton 2007 result of unequal support from Black women and men and

White women and men). The first hypotheses below summarize the “conventional wisdom” of

the extant literature on how transcendence looks when it is activated for a Black individual.

Specifically, the first two hypotheses consider the presumably “null” impact of racial identity on

then-transcendent Oprah perceptions.

Racial Transcendence Hypothesis #1: Whites are just as favorable of Oprah Winfrey as

Blacks are.

Racial Transcendence Hypothesis #2: Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Obama will have

as great an influence on her favorability among Whites as it will among Blacks.

One of our major contributions to this literature is our attention to the fragility of racial

transcendence. We argue that transcendence is “fragile” in the sense that the null expectations

mentioned above should not apply after Oprah steps away from her uncontroversial non-political

role and into the political realm. In addition, we anticipate that the viewers of a non-transcendent

Winfrey will respond differently to her endorsement depending on their racial and gender

identities. The differential impact of Oprah’s endorsement on her ability to transcend race will

reflect the psychology of in-group/out-group preference, and these differences will manifest

themselves in predictable ways depending on the race/gender intersectional identities of both Ms.

Winfrey and her viewers. We have an explicit “social position” argument (based on race/gender

differences) regarding the impact of Oprah’s endorsement on favorability and intended vote

choice. Here is how the social position works (it is perhaps helpful to think about the

expectations fitting within a “diamond” formation- see Figure 1). Because they resemble Oprah

Winfrey both in terms of race and gender, Black women are zero steps removed from her. Using

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similar logic, Black men and White women will be one step removed from Oprah--although one

could make the argument that Black men are a smaller step away than White women are.

Likewise, White men will be two steps removed.

/Figure 1 Here/

These ideas suggest two more hypotheses for understanding a non-transcendent Oprah:

In-group Intersectional Identities Hypothesis #1: Black women are more favorable of

Oprah Winfrey than other race/gender combinations.

In-group Intersectional Identities Hypothesis 2: Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Obama

will have a greater positive influence on Black women than on other race/gender

combinations.

DATA AND METHODS

Testing the “racial transcendence” and “in-group identities intersection” hypotheses

requires that we obtain polling data that includes items querying about opinions of Oprah

Winfrey favorability and political influence, and these survey questions must have been asked to

a demographically-diverse sample of respondents. Accordingly, we make use of several public

opinion polls in this article. To explore Oprah’s popularity over time, we take advantage of

documentation from the 1993 through 2015 waves of the Harris Poll. Since 1963, Harris has

compiled composite rankings of entertainers and TV personalities, and these celebrity rankings

allow us to compare perceptions of Oprah over time.

The bulk of our analyses rely on evidence from the USA Today/Gallup Poll # 2007-01:

Politics/Terrorism/2008 Presidential Election/Iraq (USAIPOUSA2007-01) and the CBS News

Poll # 2007-08A: 2008 Presidential Election/War in Iraq (USCBS2007-08A). These surveys—

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hereafter referred to as the USA Today/Gallup and CBS News polls, respectively, contain

nationally-representative samples that include sufficiently-large sub-samples of African

Americans.4 These sub-samples are essential to our analyses racial transcendence across both

race and gender. The availability of relevant survey items is complemented by the good timing

of these two surveys. The USA Today/Gallup was conducted at the beginning of 2007 (from

January 5 to January 7) and was therefore completed months before Oprah endorsed Obama. The

CBS News Poll, on the other hand, was in the field during the weeks of August 8 through 12,

2007, after Oprah Winfrey’s May of 2007 first endorsement of the then-Illinois-Senator,

although before she campaigned for the first time on his behalf in December of that year. These

two surveys nicely bracket Oprah Winfrey’s foray into politics and will be the primary focus of

our analysis.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Examining The Influence of Oprah’s Endorsement on Her Favorability

In Figure 2, we display the Harris Poll data from 1993-2011 to show that Oprah

Winfrey’s favorability (measured here in terms of her ranking among America’s “favorite

television” personalities) has changed noticeably since she endorsed Barack Obama. Although

the Harris Poll notes Oprah Winfrey’s performance in popularity up until 2015, we stop our

timeline here when Ms. Winfrey’s talk show ends, 2011. It is important to also note for our

figure that the vertical axis records the rankings in reverse order, where lower values represent

higher favorability levels (i.e., first place is higher than tenth place, despite “10” being a larger

4 We obtained these surveys from the iPoll database at the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research archives (https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/CFIDE/cf/action/ipoll/). The usual disclaimer applies: Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Roper, CBS News, Gallup, Inc. or USA Today.

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number than “1”): and the horizontal axis sorts Oprah rankings by survey year. We added a

dashed vertical line marking the approximate timing of Oprah’s endorsement.

The visual trends in Figure 1 are clear. On the one hand, it is evident that Winfrey is well

liked as a celebrity, for she was able to maintain consistently high popularity ratings throughout

most of the period examined in Figure 2. As we mentioned earlier in this paper, Winfrey

maintained the number-one status as favorite personality consecutively from 2002-2006, and in

the December 2007 poll she only dropped to the number two position behind TV personality

Ellen DeGeneres (see also Cockcroft 2008 & Scott, 2007). On the other hand, our findings

corroborate those of Panagopoulos (2008) by demonstrating that Ms. Winfrey enjoyed

considerably higher favorability rankings before her political involvement with Obama. From

1993 to 2006, Oprah averaged 1.8 on the Harris Poll Favorite TV Personality list. Since this list

is a ranking of the top ten personalities, this means that Oprah had an average rank of

approximately 2 (or second out of ten) over that entire fourteen year period. Third place was the

lowest her popularity had fallen during those fourteen years. As noted above, Oprah’s popularity

hits its all-time peak in the early 2000s—averaging 1.0 for the five years of polling measured

before her May 2007 endorsement. Then things seemed to have changed. Oprah fell to #2 in

December 2007 and #4 on the list in 2008, and, from December 2007 to 2011, Oprah averaged a

ranking of 3.2—meaning she was generally around third on the list of the top ten personalities.

In addition to displaying a shift in the magnitude of Oprah’s popularity, Figure 2 illustrates a

possible shift in the volatility of Oprah perceptions. The consistency of her pre-2007 popularity

scores (especially 2002-2006), when compared to the relative variability in Oprah perceptions

post-2007, suggests that Ms. Winfrey was less well-liked after the endorsement.

/Figure 2 Here/

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The findings in Figure 2, while impressionistic, provide some support for the idea that

Oprah Winfrey may have been racially transcendent before 2007 and that public perceptions of

Winfrey have changed since her endorsement. In Table 1, we bring stronger evidence to bear on

this alleged “endorsement effect.” Both the USA Today/Gallup and CBS News polls contain a

survey question that enables us to explore more directly the influence of Oprah’s endorsement on

her favorability levels:

Next, we’d like to get your overall opinion of some people in the news. As I read each

name, please say if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of these people -- or if

you have never heard of them. How about [Oprah Winfrey]...

Responses to this question range from “favorable” to “unfavorable,” and respondents had the

opportunity to volunteer that they are “undecided” or that they “have not heard enough.” We

organize cross tabulations of the Winfrey favorability question by race and gender. In Table 1,

we compare survey responses in a pre- and post- Oprah endorsement context, for the results in

the top (bottom) half of the table are from the survey conducted before (after) the May 2007

events in which Oprah “backed Barack” (Block, 2008).

/Table 1 Here/

The cross tabulations provide further evidence of a shift in Oprah favorability that is

associated with her Obama endorsement. Perhaps more importantly, Table 1 points to racial

differences in respondents’ reaction to Oprah’s endorsement. Regardless of the survey, Blacks’

favorability ratings are consistently above 81%. While the endorsement has no statistically-

significant influence over African Americans’ favorability, there is a noticeable shift in Whites’

opinions from one survey to the next. Specifically, Oprah’s foray into the political realm

undermined her with a group that was relatively less likely to give her strong support: White

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men. The percentage of White male respondents who say they are “favorable” toward Oprah

goes from 75.73% in the USA Today/Gallup poll to 50% in the CBS News poll. This 25.73%

decrease is the largest change we observed for all of the racial/gender groups, and a difference of

proportions test shows that this change is statistically significant (z = 7.79, p < .0001).5 We see a

similar, albeit less stark, pattern among White female respondents: a shift from the pre- (73.36%)

to the post- (67.77%) endorsement survey context contributes to a drop of 5.59% in Oprah’s

favorability levels (z = 1.97, p = .048). In short, Blacks’ favorability remained remarkably stable

from before and after the endorsement, but there was appreciable movement among Whites.

In Table 2, we test whether Winfrey’s presumably non-transcendent endorsement exerts

more influence over the Oprah favorability of African Americans in general and among Black

women in particular, relative to White men. Specifically, we specify probit models in which we

examine Oprah favorability as a function of respondents’ race and gender, controlling for other

demographic characteristics. These models take the following functional form: y = ɸ (Xβ + ε):

where the dependent variable (y) is a dichotomized version of the favorability item (1 =

favorable toward Oprah, 0 = else): ɸ is the probit link function, ε is the error term, and X

contains the estimates (β) for the impact of our theoretically-central predictors control variables.

The list of variables contained within X are race/gender intersectional identity (measured using

dummy variables for Black women, White women, Black men, and White men [the reference

category]): age (operationalized in years): party identification (dummy variables for self-

identified Democrats, Republicans, and Independents [the reference category]): income level

(based on brackets that range from less than $15,000 to greater than $100,000), and educational

attainment (1 = college and beyond, 0 = less than college).

5 We made these comparisons in Stata using the “immediate” form of the two-sample test of proportions (prtesti) command.

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/Table 2 Here/

The column on the left contains the probit estimates for the respondents in the USA

Today/Gallup poll (which represents our January 2007 pre-endorsement survey context).

Likewise, the numbers on the right are for the CBS News poll (our August 2007 post-

endorsement context). The coefficients in these regression models represent the change in the z-

score (or probit index) that results from a one-unit change in the predictor, holding other

variables constant. By placing the results for each survey side-by-side, readers can see how the

influence of race and gender on favorability varies by endorsement context. For instance, a

quick look at Table 2 confirms that “context matters” when it comes to the impact of race/gender

identity on Oprah perceptions. In the survey conducted before May of 2007, there are no

statistically-significant race/gender variables. Thus, if racial transcendence means no difference

in how Blacks and Whites rate someone in terms of favorability, Oprah is definitely transcendent

in the January 2007 data analysis. In the post-endorsement context, however, White male

respondents are far less favorable than the other three race and gender groups. We know this

because the coefficients for the race/gender groups are all positive and statistically significant at

the .05 level.

To illustrate the significant race-gender findings in the 2007 CBS News Poll, we simulate

predicted probabilities based on the probit models. The bars in Figure 3 track the likelihood of

being favorable toward Oprah, holding the control variables constant. The capped lines

extending from the bars are 95% confidence intervals (CIs). By comparing the heights of the

bars and intervals, readers can determine if the predicted probabilities vary by race or gender.

Bars with intervals that overlap (i.e., that fall within the same vertical plane) are statistically

indistinguishable from one another, while bars with non-overlapping intervals are statistically

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significant. The patterns in Figure 3 comport with the regression results of Table 2. More

importantly, the predicted probabilities lend further credence to the first In-group Identities

Intersection hypothesis: Black women are the most likely to favor Oprah (probability [pr] = .84,

confidence interval (CI) = [.82, .85]): followed by Black men (pr = .76, CI = [.75, .78]) and

White women (.70, [.69, .71]). Not surprisingly, White men are, by far, the least likely to be

favorable towards Oprah after she endorses Obama (.51 [.50, .52]).

/Figure 3 Here/

Overall, the results in Table 1, Table 2, and Figure 3 lend support to our expectations.

Recall that the first racial transcendence hypothesis predicts that there will be no racial

differences in respondents’ favorability ratings for Oprah, and that the first in-group

intersectional identity hypothesis suggests the potential for both racial and gender differences in

Oprah perceptions. We find evidence to clearly support both claims. The results are consistent

with the “racial transcendence” story in the January 2007 pre-endorsement survey context. After

Oprah officially declares her support for Obama, favorability levels across respondents show

clear race and gender divisions. Specifically, favorability is highest among Black women and

lowest for White men, with Black men and White women’s favorability levels falling in

between.

Examining The Influence of Oprah’s Endorsement on Intended Vote Choice

Having established its effect on favorability levels, we now turn our attention to the

impact of Oprah’s endorsement on vote choice. In our case, the August 2007 CBS News poll has

a unique measure of intended vote choice:

19

Oprah Winfrey has endorsed Barack Obama for president. Do you think most people you

know will be more likely to vote for Barack Obama because Oprah has endorsed him,

less likely to vote for him because Oprah has endorsed him, or won’t that matter to

people one way or the other?

Asking a question about voting for Obama is a good way to illustrate the effects of race on

candidate preference (see Block & Onwunli, 2008; Block, 2011). Asking this question about the

power of endorsements in a global fashion (e.g., “most people you know”) may help minimize

social desirability bias in surveys about voting for Black candidates (Berinsky, 1999). More

importantly, the phrasing of this question provides us with an innovative way of examining the

logic of “endorsement effects.” Presumably, measuring Oprah’s endorsement requires two

survey items: one querying whether respondents know that Oprah backed Obama, and another

asking how likely respondents are to vote for Obama in an upcoming election. These two ideas

are merged together in the CBS News Poll item above. Respondents are exposed to Oprah’s

endorsement of Obama and then invited to think about how this endorsement shapes their

intended voting patterns. The novelty of this measure becomes clearer if we consider that

viewership is an indirect way of assessing whether a person saw or heard about the endorsement,

and such exposure would be distributed across viewership levels.6 The CBS News Poll item

makes exposure level constant because respondents are explicitly told about the endorsement in a

question prompt. Regardless of whether they knew about the endorsement before the survey,

respondents will be familiar with Oprah’s political involvement after completing the survey.

/Table 3 Here/

6 For example, the September 14-17, 2007 News Interest Index Omnibus Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, shows that the percentage of respondents who had heard “a lot,” “a little,” or “nothing at all” about Winfrey’s endorsement was 16, 46, and 38, respectively (Kohut & Parker 2007).

20

In Table 3, we use this measure of Oprah’s endorsement effect to examine race-gender

differences in intended vote choice. We use the same theoretically-central independent variables

and control variables that we added in the previous probit models, and, like before, we plot the

predicted probabilities (with 95% confidence intervals) of observing an outcome of interest. In

this case, our dependent variable is a dichotomized version of the item above that is coded so that

1=more likely to vote for Obama and 0=otherwise. Table 3 shows a strong race-gender result for

Black women. In the probit model, the coefficient estimate for Black women is positive and

statistically significant at the p < .10 level, demonstrating that these respondents differ from their

White male colleagues when it comes to their likelihood of voting for Obama because Oprah

endorsed him (estimate = .30, standard error = .17, p =.06). The remaining race/gender

predictors fail to reach statistical significance, which means that these demographic groups are

no different from White men in their Oprah-influenced intended vote choice. This pattern is

most clear in Figure 4 where the bar for Black women (.39 [.38, .41]) is higher than the others,

while the bars for Black men (.26 [.24, .28]): White women (.28 [.27, .29]): and White men (.27

[.26, .28]) are similar in height.

/Figure 4 Here/

To summarize, the patterns in Table 3 and Figure 4 point to significant race and gender

differences in Oprah’s non-transcendent endorsement effect. Oprah’s ability to influence the

potential voting preferences of her viewers is strongest for Black women, which makes sense

considering our arguments regarding race/gender intersectionality and the affinity that Oprah can

cultivate with African-American women. In this sense, our results here are in accord with the

findings presented in Philpot and Walton (2007), and they bear out the second In-group

Intersectional Identity hypothesis.

21

CONCLUSION

We set up the structure for the logic of racial transcendence as discussed in American

culture today as being the culmination of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream. We argued that one

can see the template set up for racial transcendence, the ideal that race shouldn’t be a detriment

for Black success and that Blacks could presumably achieve success with the full support of

Whites. We argued that one way to think about racial transcendence is to interpret it as a status in

which evaluations of an individual are no longer strongly shaped by i) the race of the individual,

or ii) the race of the person making the assessment of the individual. Hard data about the harsh

differentials in socioeconomic status between Blacks and Whites and the less-than-optimal lived

experiences of many Blacks today lead most objective observers to believe that African

Americans have yet to achieve this ideal as a group (see, e.g., White, Laird, & McGowen, n.d.).

But observers will argue that it is possible that certain African-American individuals have

achieved such a transitory status at various time points in American history. One such African

American is presumed to be Oprah Winfrey.

Our investigation of the political endorsement by talk show host Oprah Winfrey for 2008

presidential candidate Barack Obama helped demonstrate the fragility of racial transcendence.

Oprah Winfrey is a Black woman, and we argue that her endorsement was effective at increasing

support for Barack Obama among Black women more than any other race/gender demographic.

We made this argument in contradiction to those scholars and observers who argue in favor of

Oprah Winfrey’s presumed steadfast state of racial transcendence. As noted above, many

observers argue that Oprah Winfrey consistently transcends race, meaning that she is just as

likely to receive steadfast approval and support in her efforts from Whites as she would from

22

Blacks, her in-group members. Our work here both bolsters and harms assertions about

Winfrey’s enduring racial transcendence. The analysis here bolsters the contention that the pre-

political Oprah engenders transcendence at one particular time point. But our work here moves

to belie that particular contention as it applies to overt campaign politics. A “political Oprah”

does not seem to be a “transcendent Oprah.”

There are various complications to our examinations. Considerations of small sample size

for Black men and women are present. As for another example, there is an important caveat to

remember: our data is not raw data on Oprah’s viewership but rather opinions expressed about

“political Oprah.” So we might see differences here from other data on viewers. But we argue

that we managed to move in our preferred direction since our goal is to examine the impact of

the politics of Oprah, and to make estimates of whether Oprah’s public persona allows her to use

her presumed influence to affect the political process.

Although we have closely examined the phenomenon of Oprah Winfrey, what does this

examination tell us about other endorsers? Unfortunately, our analyses can only point to certain

items previously highlighted. But the theory we are basing our analysis on does allow for

various projections. First, we would expect to see the same types of effects in the situation of

another racially-transcendent Black female celebrity endorsing a Black candidate. That may

seem banal, but it leads to other, more interesting possibilities. For example, our theoretical

outline also helps us make projections for racially-transcendent Black male celebrities (such as

Michael Jordan at various points in his public life) in terms of making endorsements, where the

basic logic is Black males would become the greatest expected supporters of said celebrity

endorsers.

23

Racial transcendence has been a mixed blessing for Blacks. Let's explore one potential

example. If we employ the aforementioned Black media standard of transcendence - being more

successful than the average African American candidate in terms of appeal to Blacks and to

Whites - observers can argue that Barack Obama achieved transcendence by this measure. But

even with the election of the first Black president we saw that presumptions of racial

transcendence did not guarantee continued success. For instance, we can see that Republican

elites mobilized against Obama as soon as he took office (Hardy Fanta et al., 2016; Rucker,

2013). Critics could argue that Obama's presumed transcendence seemed to wear off so quickly

that it had limited political utility.

An intriguing complication to our conceptual edifice is the twist on American cultural

politics wrought by the current political age. One worry would be that racial transcendence,

while always difficult to attain by Black individuals prior to the 2016 election cycle, would be

more difficult for Blacks to achieve now. This projected worry flows from presumptions of a

more racially charged atmosphere, an America where Whites might be given cues to pay more

attention now to the differences in skin color (and other differences, in general) than in years

past. A world where a large swath of American Whites is always evaluating Black people on the

basis of racial concerns is a world where Black racial transcendence would be nigh impossible.

24

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Figure 1: Social Position, Characterized in Terms of Citizen’s Demographic Distance (i.e., Steps Removed) from Oprah Winfrey

Source: Created by the authors. Note: The diagram above represents our logic for distinguishing persons of different racial and gender identities according to their potential demographic affinity with Oprah Winfrey. For example, African American women are have the closest affinity because they share both Oprah’s race and her gender. African American men and White women are both one step removed demographically from Oprah: Black men share her race but not her gender, while White women are similar in gender to Oprah but are racially different. Based on this characterization, White men are “furthest” away from Oprah because they lack both racial and gender affinity.

Black Women (Zero Steps Removed)

White Women (One Step Removed)

White Men (Two Steps Removed)

Black Men (One Step Removed)

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Figure 2: Over time changes in Oprah Winfrey’s Harris Poll “Favorite Television Personality” rankings, 1993 – 2011

Source: 1993 through 2011 Harris Interactive Polls. Note: Estimates are Oprah Winfrey’s popularity rankings, sorted by year.

1

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1995 2000 2005 2010May 2007Endorsement

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Figure 3: Post-estimation Results Showing Race/Gender Differences in the Predicted Probability of Expressing a Favorable Opinion of Oprah

Source: Data for the pre- and post- endorsement contexts come from the USA Today/Gallup Poll (January 2007) and CBS News Poll (August 2007): respectively. Note: Bars represent predicted probabilities based on the logit regression models, holding other variables constant. The error bands are 95% confidence intervals (CI): and overlapping bands (i.e., instances in which the 95% CI for one bar falls on a similar vertical plane with the CI for another bar) represent statistically-non-significant race/gender differences in Oprah favorability.

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Pre-Endorsement Survey ContextUSA Today/Gallup Poll (January 2007)

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Post-Endorsement Survey ContextCBS News Poll (August 2007)

Figure 4: Post-estimation Results Showing Race/Gender Differences in the Predicted Probability of Being “Very Likely” to Vote for Obama Because of Oprah’s Endorsement

Source: 2007 CBS News Poll. Notes: Bars represent predicted probabilities based on the logit regression models, holding other variables constant. The error bands are 95% confidence intervals (CI): and non-overlapping bands (i.e., instances in which the 95% CI for one bar falls on a similar vertical plane with the CI for another bar) represent statistically-significant race-gender differences in intended vote choice.

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Table 1: Cross Tabulations of Oprah Winfrey Favorability by Race and Gender

Pre-Obama Endorsement Context: USA Today/Gallup Poll Results (January 2007)

Race/Gender Identities N Favorable Undecided/Haven’t

Heard Enough Not Favorable

White 894 75.1% 7.60% 17.23% Black 49 81.6% 10.20% 8.16%

White Men 482 75.7% 8.51% 15.56% Black Men 21 81% 9.52% 9.52%

White Women 473 73.4% 7.40% 19.03% Black Women 28 82.1% 10.71% 7.14%

Post-Obama Endorsement Context: CBS News Poll Results (August 2007)

Race/Gender Identities N Favorable Undecided/Haven’t

Heard Enough Not Favorable

White 946 60.8% 27.91% 11.31% Black 167 81.4% 13.17% 5.39%

White Men 372 50% 34.41% 15.59% Black Men 58 72.4% 18.97% 8.62%

White Women 574 67.8% 23.69% 8.54% Black Women 111 86.2% 10.09% 3.67%

Source: USA Today/Gallup Poll (January 2007) and CBS News Poll (August 2007). Note: Table entries are sum totals (for sub-sample sizes [Ns]) and percentages (for favorability levels).

32

Table 2: Models of Race-Gender Differences in Oprah Winfrey Favorability Pre-

Endorsement Context

Post- Endorsement

Context Intersectional Identities

Race/Gender (1=Black Women, 0=otherwise) -0.022 0.90*** (0.30) (0.18) Race/Gender (1=White Women, 0=otherwise) -0.049 0.55*** (0.093) (0.094) Race/Gender (1=Black Men, 0=otherwise) -0.21 0.58**

(0.35) (0.21) Control Variables

Age (in years) -0.0022 -0.0059* (0.0029) (0.0027) Party Identification (1=Democrats, 0=otherwise) 0.29* 0.18+ (0.11) (0.10) Party Identification (1=Republicans, 0=otherwise) -0.15 -0.15 (0.11) (0.11) Income Bracket (less than $15k to over $100k) -0.032 0.050 (0.025) (0.030) College Educated at Least? (1=yes, 0=no) 0.14 0.26**

(0.11) (0.098) Constant 0.85*** -0.055 (0.23) (0.21) Observations 918 964 Pseudo R2 0.017 0.066

Standard errors in parentheses Source: Data for the pre- and post- endorsement contexts come from the USA Today/Gallup Poll (January 2007) and CBS News Poll (August 2007), respectively. Note: Logit estimates with standard errors in parentheses. + p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

33

Table 3: The Impact of Race, Gender, Age, Income, and Partisanship on the Voting Implications of Oprah’s Endorsement of Barack Obama Intended

Vote Choice Intersectional identities

Race/Gender (1=Black Women, 0=otherwise) 0.30+ (0.17) Race/Gender (1=White Women, 0=otherwise) 0.035 (0.097) Race/Gender (1=Black Men, 0=otherwise) -0.076 (0.21)

Control variables Age (in years) -0.012*** (0.0028) Party Identification (1=Democrats, 0=otherwise) -0.288 (0.231) Party Identification (1=Republicans, 0=otherwise) .269 (.20) Income Bracket (from less than $15k to over $100k) -0.050+ (0.029) College Educated at Least? (1=yes, 0=no) -.398* (.189)

Constant 0.19 (0.21) Observations 960 Pseudo R2 0.023

Source: 2007 CBS News Poll. Note: Estimates are Probit regression coefficients with robust standard errors in parentheses. + p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.