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The Fight for the Black Vote [1]

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Date: 2024-06-25  

Donald Trump is poised to win the largest share of Black voters since 1960. In that time, the Democratic Party had grown accustomed to winning 90% share of Black voters. This year, President Biden is likely to win just 77% of the Black vote. This is not a once-off. Trump has improved his share of the Black vote since he ran in 2016. In 2020, Trump won 8% of the Black vote . According to a May New York Times/Siena poll , Trump is winning 23% of the Black vote, nearly triple his 2020 total. Biden is doing even worse in swing states Michigan and Pennsylvania, where, according to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll , just 55% of Black voters say they will vote for him, with half saying they were “very motivated” in voting for Biden. This is despite Trump’s history of racist or bigoted comments about immigrants and people of color. It is also against a previous consensus that the country’s racial and ethnic demographic shifts will lead to a multi-decade majority for Democrats. The broad picture remains true: the vast majority of Black voters will vote for Biden, but, in a tight election, any slippage could prove lethal for the president’s campaign. Coming to grips with why the president and the party at large are losing Black voters, is the biggest question the campaign faces. The president recognises this, saying at a rally at Girard College, Philadelphia last month, "Because Black Americans voted, Kamala and I are President and Vice President of the United States — because of you. That’s not hyperbole. Because you voted, Donald Trump is a defeated former president."

Conservative Black Voters are Leaving

America is undergoing a racial realignment. Historically, Black people have polled more moderately or conservatively on a number of issues. Given the Civil Rights era, Black voters have largely voted Democratic even though, ideologically, they have been more conservative than the Democratic Party as a whole. Explaining why so many Black voters are leaving the Democratic Party now, Financial Times columnist and chief data reporter John Burn-Murdoch said , “Part of this is due to fading memories and weakening ties. Black Americans who lived through the civil rights era still support the party at very high levels, but younger generations are wavering”. As the memory of the Civil Rights fight fades away and more Black voters have a distance from that fight, self-identifying conservative Black voters have become more comfortable with becoming Republicans. In some ways, this mirrors what has happened with other minorities, who, in the long run, tend to vote largely the same way as everyone else, with votes split between the two major parties. Now, it’s the turn, not just of Black voters, but of Latino and other non-white voters to shift away from the Democratic Party.

Source: Financial Times

In their 2020 book, Steadfast Democrats, Ismail K White and Chryl N Laird discussed the disconnect between Black voting patterns and beliefs, which is often so wide that Black voters are conservative on issues such as gun rights, or favoring a small state, ideas that are broadly seen as Republican. In fact, as a historical side note, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers were some of the first gun rights advocates, with Malcolm X saying that, “Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun."

Abandon the Politics of Representation

I have long despaired at the politics of representation. When, for example, the media talks about how many Black or women CEOs there are in the Fortune 500, I wonder how it would affect ordinary voters if every single Fortune 500 CEO was Black, or a woman. In the end, we are talking about just 500 people in 500 jobs. The politics of representation makes a false bet, promising radical change by changing the face of America’s elite, whereas, for most people, no real change comes about. Political scientist Christina Greer of Fordham University said , “This is where we get into descriptive versus substantive representation. A lot of Black voters are like, ‘Why have we got all these Black people in charge and my life isn’t changing? Why are my economic circumstances not exponentially better if I can look at how we had a Black president and we’ve got a Black mayor? Why is it that my schools are still bad, my neighborhood is still what it is?’” This false promise, because it cannot deliver, leads to disenchantment. What we need is a focus on substantive and systemic change, not a focus on whether an actor in a movie, or a governor, or a CEO are Black.

Listen to Black Communities

Although the Democratic Party is racially diverse, many of the “conservative” views held by Black people are founded on legitimate grievances. For example, John Burnett, a Harlem businessman who is first vice-chairman of the New York State GOP, remarked that fears about immigration -an issue in which a third of Black voters want more border control- in Black communities struggling with homelessness, and a general housing crisis, are justified, because people do have a right to wonder why immigrants are getting ahead of them in terms of getting housing. It leads voters to wonder if they are voting for you so you can help another community and ignore them. Ultimately, this means abandoning certain labels around “liberal” and “conservative” and becoming a party of solutions.

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