Re-election 'is hard when your name is Barack Hussein Obama'

President Barack Obama has suggested that prejudice among some voters reduces the chances him being re-elected. Asked during a television interview how close he expected the result of November's US presidential election to be, Obama said, "When your name is Barack Obama, it's always tight."

After a host noted that his full name was 'Barack Hussein Obama', the president repeated this twice, stressing the middle name that has led conspiracy theorists to claim, erroneously, that he is secretly Muslim.

The remarks, made on ABC's The View, appeared to be a rare admission by Obama that four years after he became the first black US president, his ethnicity continues to repel some voters. Asked "why do you say that now, after four years?" Obama gathered his thoughts and said, "I think it's going to be tight because the fact of the matter is, the country has gone through a very difficult time: the worst financial crisis, the worst economic crisis, since the 1930s."

A White House spokesman declined to comment on whether Obama had been referring to voter prejudice.

A CBS News/New York Times poll on Tuesday indicated that Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, had overtaken Mr Obama as preferred leader and now led by 46 per cent to 43. Last month the same poll put the pair in a dead heat.

The president covered several other topics on the programme whose hosts include the actress Whoopi Goldberg and the veteran broadcaster Barbara Walters.

He defended JP Morgan after its recent $2?billion (pounds 1.25?billion) trading loss, saying it was "one of the best managed banks there is" and said he believed the Defence of Marriage Act, which allows states to ignore same-sex marriages carried out elsewhere, was unconstitutional.