Published October 14, 2024
Black voters have overwhelmingly voted with the Democratic Party for decades, but as some shift toward the Republican Party, a poll suggests Democrats are misreading how to keep them voting blue.
A New York Times-Siena College poll of black voters shows that Vice President Kamala Harris holds a commanding 78%-15% lead over former President Donald Trump, but that margin is down significantly from the Democrats’ advantage with the demographic in 2016 and 2020. In 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won black voters over Trump, 91%-6%, while in 2020, President Joe Biden won the demographic over Trump, 92%-8%, according to the Pew Research Center.
Harris would be the first female black president and the second black president if elected on Nov. 5, but black voters vote more on economic and other policy factors rather than race, the newspaper reported.
Feelings about the economy, like the rest of the electorate, are lukewarm to bad among black voters, according to the poll. Only 26% of black voters surveyed rated the country’s economic conditions as excellent or good, while 74% rated it as fair or poor. The economy was the most common top issue for deciding how to vote among the demographic (20%), with the cost of living and inflation also receiving 9%.
Other top issues for black voters included abortion (17%), character or competence of the candidate (11%), and immigration (5%). Equality was only listed as the most important deciding factor at 3%, while only 2% of black voters polled listed the topic of racism and racial issues.
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SOURCE: www.washingtonexaminer.com
RELATED: Black Voters Drift From Democrats, Imperiling Harris’s Bid, Poll Shows
Vice President Kamala Harris is on track to win a majority of Black voters, and has brought many back to her party since taking over for President Biden. Still, a significant gap in support persists.
Presidential support among Black voters
Dem.Rep.Margin
|
2016 Estimates |
92% | 7% | Dem. +85 |
|
2020 Estimates |
90% | 9% | Dem. +81 |
|
2024 Times/Siena Oct. poll |
78% | 15% | Dem. +63 |
Published October 12, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris has improved her party’s standing among Black voters since President Biden left the presidential race, but she still significantly trails Mr. Biden’s 2020 share of that vital Democratic constituency, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll of Black likely voters.
Nearly eight out of 10 Black voters nationwide said they would vote for Ms. Harris, the poll found, a marked increase from the 74 percent of Black voters who said they would support Mr. Biden before he dropped out of the race in July. But Mr. Biden won 90 percent of Black voters to capture the White House by narrow margins in 2020, and the drop-off for Ms. Harris, if it holds, is large enough to imperil her chances of winning key battleground states.
Democrats have been banking on a tidal wave of support from Black voters, drawn by the chance to elect the first Black female president and by revulsion toward former President Donald J. Trump, whose questioning of Ms. Harris’s racial identity, comments on “Black jobs” and demonizing of Haitian immigrants pushed his long history of racist attacks to the forefront of the campaign.
Ms. Harris is no doubt on track to win an overwhelming majority of Black voters, but Mr. Trump appears to be chipping away broadly at a longstanding Democratic advantage. His campaign has relied on targeted advertising and sporadic outreach events to court African American voters — especially Black men — and has seen an uptick in support. About 15 percent of Black likely voters said they planned to vote for the former president, according to the new poll, a six-point increase from four years ago.
Much of the erosion in support for Ms. Harris is driven by a growing belief that Democrats, who have long celebrated Black voters as the “backbone” of their party, have failed to deliver on their promises, the poll showed. Forty percent of African American voters under 30 said the Republican Party was more likely to follow through on its campaign commitments than Democrats were.
“They sweep table scraps off the table like we’re a trained dog and say, ‘This is for you,’” LaPage Drake, 63, of Cedar Hill, Texas, just outside Dallas, said of the Democratic Party. “And we clap like trained seals.”
Mr. Drake, who owns a tree removal service, said he would back Mr. Trump.
“Regardless of how people call him racist and stuff, he is for the country of America,” Mr. Drake said.
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SOURCE: www.nytimes.com
