Durham, NC - Latinos tend to identify more with whites than with blacks, according to preliminary findings of a Duke  University study. This dynamic may affect the upcoming Democratic primaries, said political scientist Paula McClain.

"What you may see is that Latino voters, despite conservatism on issues of gender, will feel more comfortable voting for Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama," said McClain, a professor of political science, public policy and African and African American Studies at Duke. "They can quickly get over the gender issue with Clinton -- because she is white."

McClain said Obama is running "a very good campaign" on a platform of multiracial and multicultural coalition-building, but in the end "there is a question about how many Latinos will go into a voting booth and pull a lever for a black."

McClain is the lead author of two previous studies exploring the relationship between blacks and Latinos in the South: "Racial Distancing in a Southern City: Latino Immigrants' Views of Black Americans" and "Black Americans and Latino Immigrants in a Southern City."

A third study, which is ongoing and surveyed Latinos in Durham, N.C., Little Rock, Ark., and Memphis, Tenn., found that Latinos tend to identify more with whites than with blacks. Despite skin color, for example, 72 percent of Latinos surveyed in Little Rock consider themselves to be white, according to preliminary findings. Because of racial hierarchies in Latino communities in the U.S. and their native countries, it is advantageous for Latinos, from their perspective, to identify with whites, McClain said.

"Clearly they are not situating themselves close to blacks. So why would we expect there to be a natural affinity between Latinos and blacks? There is this notion in the mainstream media that all minority groups have a lot in common. Actually, in some communities the groups are more likely to engage in competitive, as opposed to collaborative, behavior," McClain said.

Although her research focuses on the South, McClain said states with large Latino populations like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California will pose a challenge for Obama.

"I do not know if Obama recognizes that there are some real tensions between blacks and Latinos, especially recent immigrants," McClain said. "If he is going to make inroads, he will have to take these tensions into account in his approach. In the end, he does not need the majority of the Latino vote in the Democratic primaries, just a healthy share. That healthy share may come from higher-income, highly educated Latinos" who are also more likely to be registered voters than recent immigrants.