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When Jose Lopez looks toward Washington, he sees a hand reaching out to lift him up.

Lopez is 22, a Hispanic community college student and cafeteria worker from the improbably named town of West New York, N.J. He says that since President Obama took office, he has benefited from increased financial aid, his parents have received a tax rebate, and previously unemployed friends have gotten jobs. If Obama's economic plans go through, Lopez says, the next generation "will have it better, just like I have it better than my parents."

Only four in 10 whites say they support the health care reform legislation in Congress, compared with three-fourths of nonwhites.

When Laurie Longhorn looks at Washington, she sees a hand reaching into her wallet. Longhorn is 46, white, and an employee of a grocery store in Umatilla, Ore. To her, Obama's agenda is defined by handouts -- to poor people and big companies. "The millions and millions he's bailing out, none of it is getting down to the people who need it," she says. "He's bailing out large corporations, and we're footing the bill."

Lopez and Longhorn participated in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll and stand on opposite sides of the jagged divide running through its results. The survey, released on Friday, questioned 1,200 adults nationwide from September 24 through 28 about their economic expectations and policy preferences. Responses to most key questions revealed sharply divergent attitudes between the white majority and the rapidly growing nonwhite minority (now more than 30 percent of adults).

The divergence pulses through assessments of Obama. Just 43 percent of whites polled approve of his job performance, compared with 74 percent of nonwhites (Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, and others). But that gap, though formidable, isn't much different from the one in Obama's support during the 2008 election, when he had the backing of only 43 percent of whites but 80 percent of nonwhites.

More telling are the contrasts across the color line on deeper measures. Both whites and nonwhites worry that young people won't match earlier generations' living standards, the poll found. But whites are much more pessimistic about their own prospects. Two-thirds of whites believe that living standards for "people like me" won't grow as fast as they did for previous generations. Only about one-fourth of African-Americans and two-fifths of Hispanics agree.

Whites are not only more anxious, but also more alienated. Big majorities of whites say the past year's turmoil has diminished their confidence in government, corporations, and the financial industry. Nonwhites are also sour on the private sector but are much less disillusioned with government. Asked which institution they trust most to make economic decisions in their interest, a plurality of whites older than 30 pick "none" -- a grim statement. By contrast, a majority of blacks and a plurality of Hispanics choose elected officials in Washington. That statistic clearly reflects Obama's pull. "We finally have a president who cares about everybody, the rich and the poor," says poll respondent Monica Thornton, an African-American caterer from Baton Rouge, La.

Both whites and nonwhites back government investment in new technologies and tougher financial regulation. And both groups recoil from the federal lifelines to troubled banks and automakers and from Washington's huge budget deficit. But on other questions about government's role, whites and minorities veer apart.

Only four in 10 whites say they support the health care reform legislation in Congress, compared with three-fourths of nonwhites. And just 30 percent of whites, compared with 45 percent of nonwhites, say that an Obama-like agenda of public investment in education and technology offers the nation its best chance at long-term prosperity. Far more whites than nonwhites would bet on a conservative approach of tax cuts and deregulation. The starkest finding of all is that three-fifths of nonwhites (including three-fourths of African-Americans) believe that Obama's agenda will increase opportunities for people like them; but a plurality of whites -- 38 percent -- say his agenda will decrease their opportunities. College-educated white men believe, by 2-to-1, that Obama's approach is reducing their prospects.

No one can yet know whether whites' turning away from government activism represents a lasting ideological shift or merely reflects disillusionment that will ease as unemployment recedes. In the near term, Obama's staunch minority backing provides him a bigger base of support than he could otherwise expect amid such a severe downturn. In the long term, it's difficult to overstate the challenge either party would face in governing a country where the white majority and burgeoning nonwhite minority are moving in such diametrical directions. Red, as in "danger ahead," is the color that should be flashing from these results.