President Joe Biden is encountering formidable challenges from his most devoted constituency, Black Americans, according to a highly regarded survey of minority voters.
Nearly one-fifth of Black Americans, or 17%, indicated they would vote for former president Donald Trump in the GenForward survey that was released on Tuesday and was shared with AWN. In addition, 20% of Black respondents indicated they would cast their ballot for “someone else” if given the choice between Biden and Trump.
The poll found that while 75% of Black respondents would cast a ballot in a presidential election held today, that percentage is 10% lower than the proportion of white voters who would do the same.
The University of Chicago-hosted GenForward survey, which included 3,448 eligible voters across all 50 states and DC from November 8th to the 30th, included high oversamples of voters of colour. The online poll had a margin of error of plus or minus three points and was administered to a combination of randomly selected panel members and those who voluntarily participated.
Although the president had 63% support among Black adults, the racial group that supported Biden the most in the poll overall.
Overall, it’s a huge boost for Trump’s support among Black voters. Trump received 8% of Black votes in the 2020 presidential election, while Biden received 91% of those votes, according to AP VoteCast.
“It is possible, and we’ve seen it before, that a higher number, in particular Black men because of a kind of hypermasculinity of Donald Trump could vote for Trump [again],” stated Cathy Cohen, founder and director of the GenForward project and a political science professor at the University of Chicago.
She elaborates by saying that this might be offset by the fact that Black women, who are generally seen as the lynchpin of the Democratic Party’s multiracial alliance, are more likely to embrace Biden than Black males.
Even while she points out that Biden’s reelection campaign has plenty of time to convince Black voters to back the president, Cohen raised concerns about future turnout. Among the most striking was the fact that 20% of Black respondents and 20% of Latino respondents stated they wouldn’t vote if the election were conducted today.
According to Cohen, Democrats should be more concerned about the possibility of a third-party candidate or staying home among younger voters.
Among all respondents, 46% would support the present president in an election held today; however, 57% of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders would make the same choice. Nearly half of white respondents and 42% of Latino respondents said they would support the current president.
Latinos make up more than twice as many Trump supporters as Blacks do, according to the survey’s racial breakdown (17 percent vs. 36 percent). The survey’s surprising increase in Trump support among African Americans is noteworthy, but the percentage of Latinos who voted for Trump remains mostly unchanged when compared to exit polls conducted in 2020.
Longtime Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher, who was not involved with the GenForward survey, stated, “Polling numbers at this point are not predictive of the future.”
According to Belcher, who was involved in Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns on both sides, there were a number of polls conducted around this period in 2011 that showed Obama trailing in head-to-head contests against Mitt Romney (who would go on to become the GOP nominee) and Newt Gingrich (who had won just two states that year, his home state of Georgia and neighbouring South Carolina) in the Republican primary.
“If Joe Biden fails, it’s not going to be because Black people voted for Donald Trump,” Belcher added, denouncing the narrative as “lazy” and oversimplified.
He elaborated by saying that people are increasingly feeling that there is “an off-ramp to third-party voting, which was what we saw in 2016,” and that this is particularly true among younger voters of colour who are sick of being treated unfairly by both major parties.
Among all racial categories, respondents were most concerned about inflation, while immigration and gun control were far behind. The president’s approval rating was a pitiful 38% according to this poll. Half of Black respondents are pleased with Biden’s work as president, compared to 34% of Latinos, 37% of AAPIs, and 36% of whites.