The presidential election is, mercifully, in its final throes. We'll find out the victor soon enough, whether in a blowout victory on election night, a drawn-out process for counting, or an even longer battle in the courts. That result could hinge on whether Democratic nominee Joe Biden is able to turn out the coalition he's aiming for — including whether he can win enough support from younger Black men.
Travis Waldron dug into the figures and spoke to experts about support for Biden among Black voters. While Biden is winning with Black voters, he has a vulnerability with younger Black men. He and allies, including President Barack Obama, are working to shore it up. But will it be enough?
We talked to Travis about what it means.
Biden is polling relatively well among Black men, but among younger Black men, he seems to be more vulnerable. What did you learn about that?
This has been a concern, and an identifiable vulnerability, dating back to the primary, when there was a generational split in the Black electorate, with older voters more likely to support Biden and younger voters more open to Bernie Sanders or other candidates. The data and polling is kind of all over the place now, but it seems clear that going into the late stages of the race, Biden still had work to do to shore up support among younger Black voters, who favor him by huge margins over President Trump but aren’t quite as enthusiastic about Biden as older Black voters are. That’s particularly true of younger Black men, who some polls suggested months ago were supporting Trump in higher numbers than they did four years ago. That’s a potential problem in swing states like Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan, where a small number of votes could swing the race, especially if the white voters who aren’t as reliable a base for Democrats don’t flock to Biden the way polls and the campaign believe they will.
What is the Biden campaign doing about it?
The Biden campaign has held events and developed messages aimed at Black men throughout the campaign, especially in swing states, and they’ve ramped up those efforts late in the race. They rolled out new ads aimed at Black voters, and Black men in particular, in October that are running in all of the swing states. And Barack Obama, who drew record margins among Black voters (and Black men) in 2008 and 2012, went to Pennsylvania and Florida over the last two weeks to campaign for Biden. Obama’s popular among a lot of groups Biden needs, but he also specifically tried to boost turnout among Black voters, and he held events in Philadelphia that seemed particularly targeted toward younger Black voters. Outside the campaign, progressive grassroots groups have also done a lot to try to engage younger Black voters this year, especially when it comes to making sure voters are registered and have access to mail-in ballots or limited in-person polling precincts, in an effort to ensure that pandemic-era voting changes don’t put further barriers (on top of normal voter suppression tactics) in front of Black voters.
The Trump campaign is also making a push to win over Black men. How?
The Trump campaign has spent big on social media in an effort to draw more support from Black men, but it’s unclear how much it’s working. His numbers among Black men in recent polls aren’t great, and in some places seem lower than they were four years ago, but he also doesn’t necessarily need to win those voters over to have an impact — he just needs to dissuade them from voting. He did that in 2016 with a targeted strategy of deterrence (as the Miami Herald and the U.K.’s Channel 4 detailed), which flooded Black voters with ads meant to convince them not to vote. This year, he’s spent big on ads about criminal justice reform and Biden’s support for the 1994 crime bill, in the hopes that it will convince some Black voters that there’s little difference between the two candidates.
Did the Biden campaign turn its focus to young Black men too late?
We’ll see! An important thing to note is that Black men are going to support Biden by larger margins than any group of voters except Black women, so it’s really about the margins. Recent polls have suggested that his numbers among Black voters overall, and Black men of all ages, are closer to Obama’s than Hillary Clinton’s, and early turnout among Black voters has been high in some key areas. Another new survey released this week showed that younger Black men may be consolidating behind Biden — his numbers among them were up, and Trump’s were down below 2016 levels. But a consultant I talked to said he still needs to do more, and that Democrats overall need to do better at reaching younger Black voters on social media. And while it seems like Biden’s coalition might materialize in ways that don’t require Obama levels of support among younger Black voters, Democrats farther down the ballot probably need them to turn out in big numbers to win. |
