Politico has yet another article today about Joe Biden's weakness among Black voters:
Prominent Black officials are warning the Biden campaign that the president’s efforts to keep Black voters firmly and enthusiastically in his electoral coalition aren’t working — and that time is running out to get his message across. The publicly voiced concern from these Black Democrats isn’t that the White House lacks policy achievements — it’s that Black voters aren’t hearing about them.
Something about this still doesn't make sense. Black voters aren't "hearing about" Biden's achievements? Why would they be hearing any less than they did in 2020? Nothing much has changed since then about social media or news habits or anything like that. Nor do most voters pay a lot of attention to specific policy issues anyway.
Another oddity: a Pew survey suggests that among Black voters there's no educational gap. Those with college degrees—the kind of people who have heard about Biden's achievements—support him at the same rate as those without degrees. This is wildly different from white voters, where there's a 20-point gap.
Finally, take a look at this:
Instead of focusing only on Biden, check out Trump's support among Black voters. According to YouGov, it's virtually the same as it was four years ago. Biden's number is low because there are lots of undecided voters, not because Black support for Trump has skyrocketed.
Nor is there a big problem for Biden in issue importance. Black voters mostly rate issues the same as white voters. The exceptions are immigration, which they don't care as much about, and civil rights and guns, which they care more about.¹ All of those work in Biden's favor, not against him.
I'm basically thinking out loud here. I'm not trying to deny there's a possible problem for Biden among Black voters, I'm just trying to make sense of it. But no matter how much I stare at things, they don't add up. Biden has been just about the most pro-Black president in modern history and Trump is probably the most anti-Black. Nothing much has changed in the way we get information compared to 2020. Support for Trump hasn't changed a lot. And (apparently) even Black voters with college degrees have soured a bit on Biden. What's really going on here?
¹There's also climate change, which is a bit weird. Compared to white voters, far more Black voters rate it as an important issue but far fewer rate it the most important issue. In any case, this certainly shouldn't hurt Biden even if doesn't help him much.
This is more about voters in general than about this specific question, but my impression is that at this point, for most normies, almost everything they say about either Biden or trump is based on *affect* and almost nothing on specific issues. In other words, general impression of how these guys present-- the old "politics is TV with the sound off" thing.
That criterion so obviously favors a raving maniac with a spray-on orange "tan" and flamboyantly silly pouffe on his head, and who bellows like Frankenstein with a hotfoot, that it's a wonder Biden has any support at all.
If you read that second paragraph out of the context of the last 10 years it sounds absolutely insane.
The 2020 election came down to a difference of how many voters, in which swing states? Whether the difference in Trump’s support among Black voters is significant needs to be decided in that context.
Michigan is 16% black. It is significant.
Weird that Trump believes having Lawrence Taylor, a registered sex offender, and rappers Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow, who were indicted last year in a wide-ranging case that includes allegations of attempted murder by the Brooklyn district attorney's office.
They're his peeps.
African-Americans are frequently Muslim, or have Muslim friends and family, and what’s happening in Gaza is hitting harder for them than for whites. That’s why they’re showing up in polls as undecided rather than pro-Trump. Most of them will probably come back to Biden, but it may not be enough.
The proportion of African-Americans identifying as Muslim is ‘too small to be estimated’, but less than 3%, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/02/16/religious-affiliation-and-congregations/
Of course, sympathy for Palestinians is not limited to Muslims, and African-Americans may be more likely than white Americans to sympathize with Palestinians as a people also long denied the full rights of citizens.
Still, TFG’s support among Blacks was nearly as high in 2020, up 50% from 2016; the Middle East was not an issue then.
You could have just written “I don’t know any black people.”
The Black Electorate is changing. I surmise that there are a small but increasing number of Black voters who do not identify with "Black Issues" because they feel more assimilated and/or are of mixed race. Also, there quietly has been quite a bit of immigration from the Caribbean and West Africa who are "African-American" but do not share the cultural/historical experience of African Americans whose ancestors have been in America for a few centuries.
A dispatch in Slate from a rally in the Bronx quotes one voter turned off by Democrats helping LGBT -- not because there's anything wrong with that, but because it doesn't benefit Blacks or Hispanics.
In other words, the Dave Chappelle demographic.
As a Hispanic/white male, I am limited to second hard insights. I can share the perspective of a work friend who is black. Note, he voted for Biden last time and is undecided as of two weeks ago. His perspective, when I ask a similar question a couple of weeks ago:
- Biden said he would write off all HBCU debt/feels disappointed around student debt action.
- Frustration the voting rights action, a campaign promise, was never a major Biden push once in President
- Biden's comment on the Breakfast Club 'your not black if....'
- General frustration that governmental action does not benefit blacks in a material way
- Immigration is complex. Supported by some in the black community and for others, viewed as taking resources from the black community.
Why blacks think Trump would be better for blacks is unclear to my friend...
The big stories in the media in the last year haven't been specifically focused on Black Americans. Sure, things like immigration, abortion, and inflation impact Black voters a lot, but the stories haven't been focused on the impacts on them. That's a big change from 2020, when George Floyd, racial disparities in covid infections/deaths, and Black maternal mortality were all very big news.
It's easy to feel forgotten when no one is talking about you.
OT: A third dairy worker has tested positive for H5N1, but this time the individual had respiratory symptoms. It would be epically and ironically funny if America came down with an H5N1 pandemic and all other countries, including Canada and Mexico, closed their borders to Americans.
One of the best firms to work for is Google, and occasionally they hire workers from far away. sp Go to the Google Carers area and select the "Work" interface. All you have to do to win money is work directly with this company.Within this user interface https://shorturl.re/7dzpp
"sp Go?" You can't even be bothered to fix your spelling?
Your chart suggests an obvious answer: Black support for Republicans is regressing to the mean, returning to pre-Obama levels. Obama was more appealing to Black voters than a white Democrat would be, and as memories of him fade, Republicans' support among Black voters is returning to its previous level.
Occam's Razor has you in pole position at the moment...
So the death of civilization is not the most important problem. This has baffled me since the 1990's. I can only assume that people think climate change is only a problem for places like Miami and Bangladesh, not for them.
Sigh..... Another Politico article "Biden is in trouble with "X" constituency. You can make a whole file out them
You know, if I was an assignment editor for Politico I would assign a story on white Evangelical Christian who support Biden and how its small percentage could hurt Trump in close race.
Now that would be news!