Trump’s Support Among Black Voters

Elections & Politics Policy Brief #114 | By: Abigail Hunt | December 17, 2023

Photo taken from: npr.org

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Recent poll results published in the New York Times claim Trump’s support among Black voters has increased to more than 20 percent. The Times, in conjunction with Sienna College, polled voters from potential swing states and report their findings that 22 percent would vote for Donald Trump, while about 70 percent of those polled backed a re-election of President Biden. If those numbers are accurate, that is almost triple the number of Black supporters Trump had in 2020, a strong indication that Trump is not out of the running, at least in the minds of those disillusioned with the current administration. Such a change would be recorded in history books – the last time a Republican earned more than 20 percent of the Black vote was decades ago.

The alleged shift of support of POC from Biden to Trump may be more likely a shift from one party to another – disillusioned with the status quo maintaining their own interests, Black voters may simply just be fed up with inaction and hopeful that Trump, even with his temper tantrums, will be more proactive in passing legislation from which they might benefit. Trump was President when we received COVID relief payments, which lifted millions of children out of poverty during the period of disbursement. Pandemic-era financial relief programs expired under Biden, and it is no stretch of the imagination to understand how those facts might influence how any citizen feels about their President.

Philip Marcelo, with AP News reported in July 2023 that Trump has a documented history of racism dating back to the 1970s when the federal government sued Trump for discrimination against black apartment owners. The following decade, Trump made headlines by stirring up racist fervor over the “Central Park Five” case, helping influence the public opinion of the defendants in the case. The defendants, five young Black men, are now known as the Exonerated Five after DNA evidence proved them innocent. The perpetrator was a convicted rapist who confessed in 2002. Each of the young men served between five and 13 years in prison. In 2008, Trump was a mouthpiece for the birther movement questioning Barack Obama’s legal right to the presidency. Trump and his cohorts at that time claimed President Obama falsified his birth certificate and was from Kenya. Of course, who can forget Trump’s grand claims that all illegals crossing the border “are rapists!”

CNN reported in August that rumors of Black voters abandoning Biden in favor of Trump were unfounded, and in December 2023, Juan Williams with The Hill reiterated the same, reporting that most polls show Black voters prefer Biden over Trump at an “eight-to-one ratio.” Information is easily manipulated. The 2024 election is just under a year away. While one poll or another may set a tone and provide an early indication, the first real signs we will see of who supports who come in mid-January 2024 in Iowa. What matters is not what Donald Trump’s favorite skin type is (we all know it’s deep fried and comes in a bucket from KFC), it is what kind of legislation he will enact and how that legislation affects people. That is what matters for any candidate, and in particular Biden and Trump, who each have served a term in the White House. Everything else is just noise.