Democrats fear black voters will not show up for President Joe Biden in the presidential election next year should he be the nominee, according to reports.
A piece in the Washington Post details these concerns, largely attributing Biden’s path to the White House in 2020 to the role of black voters. According to the report, Democrats are at least partially basing their newfound concern on the steep decline of participation in the midterm election last year among black voters, dropping from 51.7 percent in 2018 to 42 percent in 2022 — a difference of almost ten points. More specifically, these declines were seen in “key states like Georgia, the center of Democrats’ plans to mobilize Black voters in large margins for Biden in 2024,” according to the Post:
The drop in Black turnout has become a focus for Democratic leaders as the party reorients to next year’s presidential contest. Biden’s election in 2020 hinged on narrow victories in states like Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that former president Donald Trump had won in 2016. Democratic activists are cautioning that the party can’t afford to let support from Black voters slip.
W. Mondale Robinson, founder of the Black Male Voter Project, shared a dire assessment of Democrats’ potential turnout problems with Black men. In many of the battleground states, he said many Black men are “sporadic or non-voters,” meaning they are registered, but have voted in one or none of the past three presidential elections. Robinson said Democrats spend too much time focused on converting “conservative-leaning White women” in the suburbs who they see as swing voters. Instead, he said, they should focus more on turning out Black men, viewing them as swing voters who are debating whether to vote or stay home.
Citing black voter advocates, the Post concluded that many black male voters feel alienated by both sides and do not feel as if their lives have improved under Democrats or Republicans, leading to a general sense of disillusionment in the political process. And experts worry that the left’s obsession with former President Donald Trump will do nothing to motivate young black voters to head to the polls. In other words, the left’s current messaging — namely, attacking Trump — is not working to motivate the voters they need to show up.
“When you think about election cycle to election cycle, [Black voters] have been telling us for a long time what matters,” Brittany Smith, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Black Leadership PAC (BLP), said, according to the Post.
“They want to put food on the table, a roof over their head, send kids to good schools, live in neighborhoods that are safe,” Smith added. “I don’t think the issues are new, it’s the way we talk about them and the way we’re centering the voice of the people who live in these communities.”
Indeed, these are valid concerns from Democrats given the fact that the GOP gained a bigger share of both black and Latino voters in the midterm election, moving from nine percent to 13 percent among black voters, specifically.
Polls leading up to the midterm election told a similar story of disillusionment toward President Joe Biden. A Quinnipiac poll released in June 2022, months ahead of the midterms, found Biden’s approval rating among black Americans falling 14 points since April 2022, descending to 49 percent.
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The concerns come as others, namely, CNN, warn that a second Trump term is a “very real possibility.”
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