Erin Schaff / The New York Times
Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, on the campaign trail in West Columbia, S.C., on May 5, 2019. South Carolina in 2019. Black voters were critical to his Democratic primary victory in 2020, and to his success against Donald Trump in the general election.
Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Black voters are more disconnected from the Democratic Party than they have been in decades, frustrated with what many see as inaction on their political priorities and unhappy with President Joe Biden, a candidate they helped lift to the White House just three years ago.
New polls by The New York Times and Siena College found that 22% of Black voters in six of the most important battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — said they would support former President Donald Trump in next year’s election, and 71% would back Biden.
The drift in support is striking, given that Trump won just 8% of Black voters nationally in 2020 and 6% in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. A Republican presidential candidate has not won more than 12% of the Black vote in nearly half a century.
Biden has a year to shore up his standing, but if numbers like these held up across the country in November 2024, they would amount to a historic shift: No Democratic presidential candidate since the civil rights era has earned less than 80% of the Black vote.
The new polling offers an early warning sign about the erosion of Biden’s coalition, Democratic strategists said, cautioning that the president will probably lose his reelection bid if he cannot increase his support from this pivotal voting bloc.
A number of Democratic strategists warned that the Biden campaign had to take steps to improve its standing, particularly with Black, Latino and younger voters.
Cornell Belcher, who worked as a pollster for former President Barack Obama, said he doubted that many Black voters would switch their support to Trump. His bigger fear, he said, is that they might not vote at all.
“I’m not worried about Trump doubling his support with Black and brown voters,” said Belcher, who focuses particularly on surveying voters of color. “What I am worried about is turnout.”
Cliff Albright, a veteran progressive organizer and a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said Democrats had time to get back on track.
“We’re a year out from the election,” Albright said. “If you ask the very same people the same question a year from now, when the choice is very clear, the same 22% might have a very different answer.”
He added: “Is there work to be done? Yes. But is the sky falling? No.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
