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Sheryl Harris, a voluble 52-year-old with a Virginia drawl, voted twice for George W. Bush. Raised Baptist, she is convinced -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- that President Barack Obama, a practicing Christian, is Muslim.

So in this year's presidential election, will she support Mitt Romney? Not a chance.

"Romney's going to help the upper class," said Harris, who earns $28,000 a year as activities director of a Lynchburg senior center. "He doesn't know everyday people, except maybe the person who cleans his house."

She'll vote for Obama, she said: "At least he wasn't brought up filthy rich."

Focusing on 11 states from Virginia and North Carolina to Texas and Oklahoma, the Reuters/Ipsos polling project canvassed 8,690 people in households with incomes under $55,000 a year -- just above the U.S. median.

Non-Hispanic whites in this bracket have skewed Republican for more than three decades, and they prefer the GOP nominee to Obama by 46 percent to 29 percent. However, as Romney launches a post-convention ad blitz, those numbers could signal trouble for his campaign. Strategists in both parties figure that to offset the president's expected landslide among an expanding electorate of blacks and Hispanics -- Obama won 80 percent of minority votes in 2008 -- Romney must garner more than 60 percent of the white vote overall.

A Romney ad asserts that "Under Obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. They just send you a welfare check." Independent fact-checkers say the ad distorts the administration's plan to give states more flexibility on work rules -- a request that came from Republican governors.

In Lynchburg, however, it resonates with some white conservatives. At the Modern Barber Shop on Main Street, where the Ten Commandments are displayed in the window, a group of retirees chatted about the election on a recent morning.

"I don't believe in free handouts," said Robert McCanna, a former accountant. "Obama is pitting blacks against whites."

Retired truck driver Lyle Campbell interjected, "If I was black, I would get anything I want."

Just up the street, however, Sheryl Harris, the senior center activities director, sees the election through the lens of class, not race. "Romney didn't get to the top of the pile by being a nice guy," she said. "To make the money he makes you have to step on a lot of people ... Democrats are more interested in helping the lower and middle classes."

KneelandBobDylan wrote:

A Romney ad asserts that "Under Obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. They just send you a welfare check." Independent fact-checkers say the ad distorts the administration's plan to give states more flexibility on work rules -- a request that came from Republican governors.

In Lynchburg, however, it resonates with some white conservatives. At the Modern Barber Shop on Main Street, where the Ten Commandments are displayed in the window, a group of retirees chatted about the election on a recent morning.

"I don't believe in free handouts," said Robert McCanna, a former accountant. "Obama is pitting blacks against whites."

Retired truck driver Lyle Campbell interjected, "If I was black, I would get anything I want."