Donald Trump may win more Black votes than any other Republican presidential candidate in history in the upcoming presidential election.
According to national and swing state polls reviewed by Bloomberg, the former president and GOP front runner has between 14 percent and 30 percent of the Black vote share as the country heads into an election year.
This is far beyond the 8 percent of the Black vote the Pew Research Center said the Republican won in the 2020 presidential election and more than any Republican candidate before him.
The NAACP estimated that 5 million African Americans voted in the 1960 presidential election when Richard Nixon won 32 percent of the Black vote, according to Politico. Since then, the Black population has increased from around 10.83 percent or 19,418,190 people, according to an analysis of census data, to 13.6 percent of the overall population or 46,936,733 people.
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The Black voting turnout has slightly increased in presidential elections from 58.5 percent of the eligible voting population in 1964, the earliest election for which such figures are available, to 58.7 percent in 2020, according to Statista. This means if Trump wins more than 13 percent of the vote share, he will gain the highest proportion of the Black vote since Nixon in 1960 and more individual Black votes.
Democratic President Joe Biden, on the other hand, attracted 92 percent of the Black vote in 2020, compared with just 8 percent for Trump, according to analysis by the Pew Research Center. The Black vote helped him win in swing states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, with Biden securing 88 percent of the Black vote in Georgia in 2020, for instance, but overall only winning the state by 11,779 votes, or 0.24 per cent.
But polls conducted in 2023 suggest the incumbent president is now losing support among Black voters.
Indeed, his favorability among Black voters in seven swing states slipped 7 percentage points from October to December 2023, to 61 percent, according to a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. Trump’s favorability in the same period has remained steady at around 25 percent.
If Trump comes up top with the Black vote in swing states then, it could help him win the election.
Newsweek contacted representatives for Trump and Biden to comment on this story.
Speaking to Newsweek, Mary Frances Berry, historian at The Pennsylvania State University cited economic reasons for Trump gaining more of the vote share.
“Black males especially cite prices of basic needs, food for example despite the decline in inflation,” she said. “Some who are small business owners say under Trump it was easier for them to get federal loans, for example. They also cite the backlash against police accountability measures as the George Floyd murder discussion has receded into the sunset.”
She continued: “Middle age and older Black women seem to take a better than Trump lesser of two evils posture. But nobody I know is excited about reelecting Biden. They like Kamala Harris, but lots of folks will probably stay home unless some unexpected positive change in economic prospects or civil rights occurs.”
Source: American National Election Survey
Mark Shanahan an associate professor in politics at the University of Surrey in the U.K. said a potential drop in the Black voting turnout could swing things for Trump.
“Biden is no Obama,” he told Newsweek. “He’s not a candidate who excites and has offered little, if anything, specific to the African American community since 2021. And because of that, a group that tends to vote less than white Americans anyway may simply stay at home in November.”
“Some Black men may be attracted to the machismo of Trumpism, but they’re likely to be balanced out by Black women who see nothing positive in a second Trump term,” he added.
“But just by staying at home, Black voters could swing this election to the GOP—tight races in swing states will break for Biden if there’s a high electoral turnout overall,” he said. “As such, Biden has to be seen to offer more not to Black voters specifically, but to those struggling economically. Black voters are disproportionately poor and need to see a candidate working to alleviate their struggle. For Trump, the American Dream is a white dream—Biden has to show it’s accessible to all Americans.”
Capitalizing on their potential gains, the Trump campaign plans to court the Black vote in earnest.
“This will be our strongest effort yet with the African American community,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign told Bloomberg News.
Meanwhile, aware of what is at stake, the Democratic National Committee are also working to retain the Black vote.
“The DNC hasn’t let up on engaging and mobilizing Black voters,” the Democratic National Committee chair, Jaime Harrison, told The Guardian. “This isn’t something I take lightly. I know what it feels like to have our community taken for granted and only have folks show up for us when they need our vote on election day.”
Meanwhile, if the 2024 election was held today, with Trump and Biden as candidates for the Republicans and Democrats respectively, Trump would win at least 285 electoral votes, 15 beyond the number needed to claim the election, according to Newsweek analysis.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.