Biden and the Democratic Party Need to Do More to Gain Their Votes, Black Voters Say

President Joe Biden departs the White House to board Marine One on the South Lawn on Jan. 27, 2024. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Some black voters are upset with the Democratic Party for taking advantage of them and for not aligning with their values, whether it’s on tax reform, immigration, or outreach to African-American communities.

“Blacks are frustrated with the Democratic Party,” Nicholas Jenkins a Democrat and African American from Seattle, Washington, told The Epoch Times. “You have some highly vocal black men who flirt with Republicans, but what is the impact? How many of them can and do vote?”

Mr. Jenkins believes that black voters are also disappointed by a lot of immigration policies proposed by Democrats.

“[Illegal] immigrants are helped when African Americans, who are citizens, often are not.”

A group of Democrats is offering a new analysis of the most recent campaigns in Georgia and Michigan, pitching those battlegrounds as models for drawing in more black voters this year and beyond. They argue that Democratic power players need to think—and spend money—in new ways, going beyond efforts that can be last-minute or superficial as they try to reassemble President Joe Biden’s 2020 coalition.

“The days of the symbolic fish fry and one-time church visit are over,” wrote the authors of the analysis by strategists widely credited for helping flip Georgia and Michigan to President Biden. “Black voters have always required an approach to voter engagement as diverse as the black voting coalition.”

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It’s a feeling echoed by Travis Toni, a black Democratic voter out of Houston, Texas.

“I’ve just heard people [in the community] say that they would just stay home and vote for other candidates,” Mr. Toni told The Epoch Times.

Biden Needs Black Voters

President Biden has long relied on black voters, first as a Delaware senator and most notably during the 2020 South Carolina primary, where he secured a decisive victory that prompted much of the Democratic field to rally behind him. His campaign says that his reelection effort already mirrors the priorities and approach advocated by external strategists.

Former President Donald Trump was able to snag about 12 percent of the black male vote in the 2020 election, an increase from the 8 percent he made in 2016.

“The [Biden] campaign is designing comprehensive and robust programs in battleground states to mobilize and engage black voters,” said Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director. He noted the campaign is already running targeted digital ads and building outreach programs in black communities, months earlier than presidential campaigns typically launch such efforts.

Yet, just 50 percent of black adults said they approve of President Biden in a December poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That is compared with 86 percent in July 2021, with the gap fueling concerns about his reelection prospects.

Separately, a November poll by The New York Times and Siena College also discovered that 22 percent of voters in six battleground states would support President Trump in 2024. Meanwhile, 71 percent of black voters said they would support Biden.

Additionally, one in five black voters said they would vote for “someone else” instead of President Biden or Trump in the upcoming presidential election, according to a poll from GenForward.

Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are the seven states critical to determining the Electoral College outcome. In 2022, black voter turnout decreased by an average of approximately 22 percent compared to the 2018 midterms across these states, according to data analysis by multiple Democratic firms. If black support for President Biden lags in any three of these states, it could hinder his path to the necessary 270 electoral votes.

Biden Supporters Sound-Off

Democratic stalwarts who have supported President Biden argue former President Trump is also shredding support.

“Donald Trump has energized a mean-spirited and destructive core of Republican activists who now control their party. But in doing so he has pushed away many fair-minded people who will no longer call themselves Republicans,” Matt Angle, Democratic strategist and founder of the Texas Lone Star Project told The Epoch Times. “There is a reason you have ‘Never Trumpers’ but don’t have ‘Never Bidens.’ If anything Democrats have a chance to grow our party.“

Mr. Angle’s support for President Biden among a drop in poll numbers within the black community is shared by Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), whose support was arguably the reason the president won the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primary.

“I’m concerned when I see this,” Mr. Clyburn recently told ABC’s Good Morning America. “If there’s any truth to the numbers, I don’t believe them. I talk to black people all the time. I have three black daughters. They tell me differently. My grandchildren tell me differently.”

Mr. Clyburn continued to blast the “misinformation” coming from some of the recent polling.

“I don’t know where those numbers are coming from. When you ask a question and someone is basing their opinion on incomplete information or misinformation and the other side seems to be pretty good at misinformation, we know what happened in the last election.”

President Biden recently spoke at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in an attempt to rally black support. The church was the site of a mass shooting in 2015 that resulted in the deaths of nine people.

“The word of God was pierced by bullets in hate and rage, propelled by not just gunpowder but by a poison, a poison that’s for too long haunted this nation,” President Biden said.

“What is that poison? White supremacy. Oh, it is; it’s a poison. Throughout our history, it’s ripped this nation apart. This has no place in America. Not today, tomorrow, or ever.”

He went on to compare “MAGA Republicans” to Civil War-era insurrectionists who waved the Confederate Flag.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.