STEUBENVILLE, Ohio - For nearly three and a half years, a black family has occupied the White House, and much of the time what has been most remarkable about that fact is how unremarkable it has become to the United States. While Mr. Obama will always be known as the first black American president, his mixed-race heritage has only rarely surfaced explicitly amid the tumult of a deep recession, two wars and shifting political currents.

But as Mr. Obama braces for what most signs suggest will be a close re-election battle, race remains a powerful factor among a small minority of voters - especially, research suggests, those in economically distressed regions with high proportions of the white working-class, like this stronghold of staunch Democrats. Mill workers, coal miners and labor union members, they have voted the party line for generations.

Mr. Obama barely won this county in 2008 - 48.9 percent to the Republican John McCain's 48.7 percent. Given Ohio's critical importance as a swing state that will most likely be won or lost by the narrowest of margins, the fact that Mr. Obama's race is a deal-breaker for even a small number of otherwise loyal Democrats could have implications for the final results.

"Certain precincts in this county are not going to vote for Obama," said John Corrigan, clerk of courts for Jefferson County, who was drinking coffee recently with friends. "We all know why."

Jason Foreman, a retiree, interjected, "I'll say it: it's because he's black."

The Obama campaign's strategy largely relies on a strong performance in cities and suburban areas to make up for any falloff elsewhere in Ohio.

Obama officials rarely openly discuss the president's race. Mr. Obama said in April that race in America was still "complicated."

In 50 interviews recently in the United States over three days, five people raised race directly as a reason they would not vote for Mr. Obama.

"I'll just come right out and say it: he was elected because of his race," said Sara Reese, a bank employee who said that although she usually votes Democrat, she did not vote for Mr. Obama.

But the main quarrels Democrats here have with Mr. Obama have nothing to do with race. They include his initial rejection of the Keystone pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada, saying it would harm this mine-heavy region.

And the economy, on the rise nationally, is still stuck here. About one in three residents lives in poverty, double the national rate.

Christopher Brown, a union leader in Steubenville, said more than 200 of his members were still out of work. As for race, he said, "It's not on the front table, it's in the back seat."

Just how far back, no one knows. Clement A. Price, a history professor at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, said, "Race in America is always a work in progress. It's often a proxy for social anxieties, such as this long recession, joblessness, and the war abroad."

Stephanie Montgomery, a black college graduate, said her race came up often in her job search in this area. The sign: when warmth on the phone turns cool in person, and "they lose eye contact with you."

She said that she voted for Mr. McCain in 2008 because she preferred his more conservative platform, but that Mr. Obama seemed to attract criticism, in part because of his race.

"He's everything they hate," she said, referring to ultraconservatives. "An affirmative-action baby. Got the Nobel Prize without deserving it."

Many who raised race as a concern cast Mr. Obama as a flawed candidate carried to victory by blacks voting for the first time. Others expressed suspicions about his background and questions about his faith.

"He was like, 'Here I am, I'm black and I'm proud,'" said Lesia Felsoci, a bank employee, at a local restaurant. "Black people voted him in, that's why he won. It was black ignorance."

Louis Tripodi, a baker who voted for Mr. Obama, blames talk radio and Republican rhetoric. "'He's a Muslim, he's a socialist, he's not born in this country,'" he said, citing the false charges. "It's got a lot to do with race."

Race has also helped Mr. Obama. It increased voter turnout among blacks in 2008, and some younger voters said it was part of why they voted for him.

Blacks made up 13 percent of the electorate in the 2008 presidential race, 95 percent of whom voted for Mr. Obama; 54 percent of young white voters did.

"It was a fad to like him," said Dee Kirkland, 22, who works in a pizza shop.

Mr. Obama still has enthusiastic supporters here. One of them, Mr. Corrigan , said he believed the president would ultimately win this county but that it would be very close.

Diane Woods, the owner of Pee Dee's Brunch and Bar diner, said the fact that race came up at all in 2008 "really showed how divided we still are," adding, "Blacks came out to vote for the first time because he was black, and you had all these whites saying, 'Oh, there's another vote from some drug addict.'"

As for the upcoming election on November 6, she said she would vote for Mr. Obama again, because "when he talks, it makes sense to me."

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting from Washington.

The New York Times

(China Daily 05/13/2012 page9)