For over 50 years, Democrats have had one voting bloc that could always be counted on to deliver votes. Black voters have been the one constant, especially in America’s large Democrat-run cities. But as the number of black Republicans has grown, and the Democrat Party has thrown all its eggs into the transgender and climate change baskets, there is starting to be a bit of nervousness as to whether those that make up that traditionally reliable voting bloc will show up in numbers that they did in 2020 for Joe Biden in 2024. And much of that nervousness is showing up in key battleground states like Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
Even though Democrats did better than expected in the 2022 midterms, black voter turnout dropped by ten percent. And in those key battleground states, the emphasis is on black men. W. Mondale Robinson is the founder of the Black Male Voter Project. In an interview with the Washington Post, Robinson stated, “Black men are your second-most stable base overwhelmingly, and yet you can’t reach them in a way that makes your work easier.” He added that black men are “sporadic or non-voters,” and that the Democrat Party needs to focus more on black men rather than suburban white women, who tend to be labeled as swing voters but voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Democrats appear to be concerned about getting out the vote among black men more so than black women, as long as Vice President Kamala Harris is on the ticket with Biden.
But that ten percent drop in black voters in 2022 is only part of the story. There are many more polling numbers that should be making the Biden campaign nervous. In an AP-NORC poll from May, just 55 percent of black voters said they would support Biden in 2024. Other numbers in the same poll are not any more encouraging. Biden’s approval rating with black voters is at 58 percent, and only 41 percent said they wanted him to run for reelection. For many of these voters, it’s the economy, stupid. High inflation and not being able to deliver on any student loan debt relief were also cited as reasons black voters were turned off.
So, where are those black voters going? Well, their ultimate destination could be good news for Republicans, especially if former President Donald Trump is the GOP nominee for 2024. In 2016, Trump got just eight percent of the black vote. In 2020, that number jumped significantly to 12 percent. An ABC News/Washington Post poll delivers even more grim news for Joe Biden. Of those polled, 27 percent of black voters said they would “definitely or probably” vote for Donald Trump in 2024. That should cause the alarms to go off for Democrats. Cedric L. Richmond is a senior advisor at the Democrat National Committee. He said of reaching black voters:
We have to meet them where they are and we have to show them why the political process matters and what we have accomplished that benefits them. We will not make the mistake that others made of not drawing all the connections.
Others agreed that touting supposed benefits for black voters by Democrats rather than focusing on any concern over Trump was the way to go. Democrat State Senator from Pennsylvania Sharif Street agreed saying, “Being better than the Republicans is not always enough to get people motivated to vote.” Jay Williams is a GOP strategist in Georgia who seemed optimistic. He said:
My guess is Democrats for the foreseeable future will continue to do well [with black voters], but I think there’s some cultural issues that don’t typically resonate with the black community as a whole and frankly a lot of minority communities. Republicans will be able to peel some folks off based on that, depending on the area. It could be a real wedge issue for us.
The trend toward Republicans among not just black voters, but Hispanic voters as well, has been growing for a while. In August of 2022, Hispanic voters were leaning Democrat by roughly 11 points. By October, just prior to the midterm election, that number had dropped to just five points. In 2022, Rep. Monica de la Cruz (R-TX) was one of a handful of Hispanic Republican women running for office in Texas. She summed up exactly why Hispanics are moving to the Republican Party, and it aligns with what Jay Williams thinks Democrats’ downfall with black voters may be. During her campaign, de la Cruz stated:
Hispanic culture really aligns with pro-life, pro God, and pro country. Those are the values of the Republican party. Democrats have just simply gone too far to the left and towards socialism.
Democrats may have some hard choices to make in 2024.