After Barack Obama's election last year, 70 percent of Americans thought race relations in America had improved, but that number is now down to 41 percent, according to a Gallup poll conducted Oct. 16-19. However, the poll showed that Americans, whether black or white, were optimistic about advances in race relations in the coming years because of Obama's election.

Measured against the 41 percent who think race relations are improved as a result of Obama's election are 35 percent who say they are about the same and 22 percent who believe they have worsened. Last November, 70 percent said they had improved, 17 percent said they were about the same and 10 percent said they had worsened.

Fifty-three percent of blacks and 39 percent of non-Hispanic whites believe that relations have become better because of Obama becoming president, but only 11 percent of blacks and 7 percent of whites put themselves in the category of saying relations have become a lot better. Twenty-seven percent of blacks say they are about the same and 20 percent rate them a little or a lot worse. Thirty-six percent of whites view relations as about the same, with 23 percent saying they have worsened to some degree.

But Gallup also found optimism for the future. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe race relations will get better in the years ahead as a result of Obama's presidency, a view held by 79 percent of blacks and 58 percent of whites.

Forty-four percent of blacks -- a plurality -- consider Obama's election as their most important advance in the past 100 years, while 16 percent of whites class it as one of two or three most important advances. Overall, 20 percent of Americans consider it the most important advance, while 38 percent say it is one of the most important, 24 percent describe it as important but not one of the most, and 16 percent say it was not that important.