Washington Post-ABC News poll: Mitt Romney holds significant advantages over Obama among white voters who are struggling financially and buffeted by job loss

Asked which candidate would do more to advance their families’ economic interests, middle-class white voters who say that they are struggling to maintain their financial positions chose Romney over Obama by a large margin — 58% to 32%. Romney has a similar advantage on this question among white voters who have lost a job in recent years, or who have seen a family member or close friend face unemployment. Nonwhite voters, struggling or not, give Obama huge leads over Romney when it comes to looking after their families’ financial interests. The results underscore a continuing challenge for Obama and the Democratic Party with white voters, and particularly those without college degrees — who, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are significantly more likely to be unemployed than those with higher education. In 2008, Obama lost whites without college degrees by a big margin, 58% to 40%, according to the national exit poll. That performance among such voters was similar to John F. Kerry’s in 2004 and Al Gore’s in 2000. In the poll, Americans overall reported widespread economic pain, with more than seven in 10 saying that they have been affected directly or indirectly by unemployment in the past few years. Four in 10 report struggling to maintain their socioeconomic status, with about one in five saying that they are in the middle class and straining to stay there. Among white voters trying to stay in the middle class, Romney is considered the better candidate for that group by a 20-point margin; Obama is preferred by better than 3 to 1 among middle-class nonwhite voters, regardless of their sense of security.