Former President Donald Trump in recent years has aimed to win over Black voters, who for decades have made up the Democratic Party’s most reliable base of support.
In myriad polls taken throughout much of this year, Trump has attracted support from increasingly larger shares of Black voters when his opponent was President Joe Biden. And the incumbent’s political woes were largely driven by disenchantment among young Black voters, who are not as loyal to Democrats as older Black voters and have been critical of his handling of the Israel-Hamas War.
But a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll of Black Americans showed that Vice President Kamala Harris has made serious headway in winning over Black voters, especially among the younger voters whom were lukewarm toward Biden’s onetime reelection bid.
The survey was taken from Aug. 23 through Sept. 3.
Overall, 69% of Black Americans said they were “absolutely certain to vote” in the November election, a bump from the 62% of Black respondents who said in April that they’d be certain to cast ballots in the fall.
Both figures are still below the 74% of Black Americans who in June 2020 said they were certain to head of the ballot box.
But there has been notable movement toward Harris among young voters.
In the latest survey, 77% of Black voters aged 18 to 29 said they’d back Harris, an uptick from the 59% of Black voters in this age group who in April indicated that they’d support Biden.
Overall, nearly 82% of Black voters said they’d “definitely” or “probably” support Harris, an increase from Biden’s 74% mark in April.
In 2020, Black voters not only catapulted Biden to the Democratic presidential nomination but handed him the White House, as he won 92% of the Black vote overall that fall, according to the Pew Research Center.
During that cycle, Biden — who campaigned on providing student-loan debt relief and tackling the coronavirus pandemic — also won handily among Gen Z voters and millennials.
But this year, Biden had battled low enthusiasm among Black voters, which was imperiling his chances in states like Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
Trump, who has sought to win over Black men with an an emphasis on economic concerns and immigration, had previously sharpened his focus on this group given Biden’s polling troubles.
Harris’ entry into the race has shifted this dynamic dramatically.
A graduate of the historically Black Howard University and the first Black and Indian-American vice president in US history, Harris has mobilized Black women across the country with her candidacy.
And Trump, who in July questioned Harris’ racial identity at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, now finds himself a smaller band of Black voters to attract to his campaign.
Harris’ candidacy in a matter of weeks has made Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina competitive again for Democrats, pulling back Democratic-leaning voters who were cool toward Biden.
Trump is hoping that economic concerns will bring in more Black voters to back his campaign, but Harris has narrowed the polling advantage that the former president long had on that key issue, another dynamic that is keeping this contest competitive.
