Don’t Even Think About Blaming Black Voters For A Donald Trump Apocalypse

It’s the white men.

A New York Times headline from Saturday read, “Black Voters Drift From Democrats, Imperiling Harris’s Bid, Poll Shows.” Newsweek claims, “Kamala Harris Gets Lackluster Support Among Black Voters in New Poll.” I must question the words “imperiling” and “lackluster.” The poll cited shows that 78 percent of Black voters support Vice President Kamala Harris, who boasts a 63 percent lead over Donald Trump. If only Black people voted, we could all relax. Although Democrats would still send panicky emails asking for more money.

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Times reporters Maya King, Jonathan Weisman, and Ruth Igielnik write, “[President Joe] Biden won 90 percent of Black voters to capture the White House by narrow margins in 2020, and the drop-off for Ms. Harris, if it holds, is large enough to imperil her chances of winning key battleground states.”

The article doesn’t once mention white voters, who are the majority of the electorate, and the only reason that almost 80 percent Black voter support is somehow deemed insufficient. White voters are 59 percent of the electorate, but Trump’s coalition is about 85 percent white. Black people are expected to do all the work maintaining American democracy like it’s an antebellum plantation.

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Nate Cohn at the Times wrote on Sunday, “Why Is Trump Gaining With Black and Hispanic Voters?” This helps promote a MAGA narrative that Trump is building a multiracial “working-class” coalition, while Harris’s Democratic Party is a bunch of snooty “wine moms.”

However, Trump is decisively losing minority groups. Cohn presents Harris’s 56 to 37 percent performance among Hispanic voters as a source of alarm for Harris, because Biden carried that demo 65 to 32 percent. Another Times headline stated, “Harris Struggles to Win Over Latinos, While Trump Holds His Grip, Poll Shows.” This a curious definition of “struggle,” which only applies in the context of the GOP’s white voter dominance. Without white voters, Harris’s Hispanic numbers would easily sweep Arizona, Nevada, and even Texas and Florida.

Political commentator Keith Boykin pointed out that pollsters predicted lower Black voter margins for Biden, as well, which clearly didn’t come to pass. (Watch below.)

Minority voters are held to higher standards

There’s a presumption, particularly among white liberals, that Black and Latino voters should uniformly support Democrats because Republicans, especially Donald Trump, are overtly racist and awful. Meanwhile, white voters are special snowflakes we must win over with policy specifics and bipartisan bromides, even as Trump remounts old Nazi rallies around the country.

During his searing speech last week, former President Barack Obama didn’t hide his anger and frustration that Trump remains a threat to the nation, which is understandable when you consider that MAGA is a toxic response to the Obama years, sort of like racist acid reflux. Earlier that day, when he visited a Harris campaign field office in Pittsburgh, he was open about his disappointment that some Black male voters were considering either siting out the election or voting for Trump.

“My understanding, based on reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities, is that we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running,” he said.

“On the one hand, you have somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences,” Obama said. “And on the other side, you have someone who has consistently shown disregard, not just for the communities, but for you as a person.”

Yes, Trump is obviously racist, but fascism’s appeal is that people within the “in group” can feel protected from the hateful rhetoric and outright violence directed at those in the “out group.” I’ve worked with a lot of white liberals over the years, and they are often condescending and dismissive of Black perspectives that don’t bolster their own. If you’re the only Black member of a predominately white liberal group, you rarely feel part of the “in group.” Your inclusion feels conditional.

Obama, “speaking to [Black] men directly,” wondered whether “you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

A greater percentage of Black men will vote for a Black woman presidential candidate than any other racial group besides Black women. More Black men voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 than white men and even white women. I lived in New York during the 2008 election, and it was a white male liberal, law school-educated Obama supporter who openly called Hillary Clinton a gendered slur starting with “c.” The Black guy who cut my hair called her “Senator Clinton.”

In the 2022 Georgia Senate race, 93 percent of Black women voted for Democrat Raphael Warnock, compared to 85 percent of Black men. Democrat Stacey Abrams did about the same with Black men (84 percent). She lost because she performed significantly worse than Warnock among white voters, who were 61 percent of the electorate: She managed just 23 percent of white men compared to Warnock’s 27 percent, and 27 percent of white women compared to his 30 percent.

Obama spoke movingly in Pittsburgh about how “the women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time. When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting. And now, you’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.”

That’s true of all women, and if Black men aren’t turning out in Obama 2008 numbers, white men certainly aren’t. Obama performed almost five points better among white men in 2008 than John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. This is significant, as white men were 36 percent of the electorate compared to Black men’s five percent. Obama did better among white men in 2008 than Bill Clinton in both 1992 and 1996.

Digging into these numbers, it’s interesting to discover that Clinton, often described as the “first Black president,” managed just 78 percent of the Black male vote in 1992 and 1996, a noticeable dip from soul brothers Mike Dukakis and Walter Mondale in 1988 and 1984. A number of Black men voted for Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, yet they weren’t as into Ralph Nader and returned to Gore and Kerry, who boasted 85 and 86 percent support.

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Perot helped keep George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole’s share of the white male vote at just 40 and 49 percent. That shot back up to 60 and 62 percent with George W. Bush before tumbling to 57 percent for John McCain.

White men, specifically “working class,” non college-educated white men, helped Obama win Iowa, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and even Indiana in 2008. Democrats have actively appealed to them with specific policy measures and multiple New York Times diner stories. Nonetheless, this demo moved steadily to MAGA because they can’t handle a woman boss.

The International Association of Fire Fighters has endorsed every Democratic candidate since 1960 except for Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. The national Teamsters union refused to endorse Harris, even though Trump and the entire GOP is openly hostile to unions.

After Trump’s upset victory in 2016, CNN claimed “African-American, Latino and younger voters failed to show up at the polls in sufficient numbers Tuesday to propel Clinton into the White House,” and she “just couldn’t hold on to the Obama coalition.” But coalition included white men! Clinton overwhelmingly won Black, Latino, and voters under 44. The Blue Wall shattered because white male union voters flipped to Trump.

The high-finance approach to voting

NBC News released a poll on Sunday that has Kamala Harris and Donald Trump deadlocked at 48 percent, but it shows her with a 73-point lead among Black voters (84 percent to 11 percent). The convicted felon and adjudicated rapist under criminal indictment has a 14 point lead among white voters overall (56 to 42 percent), but that’s actually a better performance with white voters for any Democratic candidate since 2008. Barack Obama fell from 43 percent white vote support in 2008 to just 39 percent in 2012.

Trump leads among rural voters (75 to 23 percent) and whites without college degrees (65 to 33 percent), but Harris’s numbers with those demos are roughly equal or better than Trump’s best numbers among Black and Hispanic voters. Yet, instead of running op-eds about why Republicans need to get outside their bubble and relate better with minority voters, they rave about a possible “racial realignment,” and no one suggests that Trump’s performance with rural and working-class white voters is “lackluster” because he’s not breaking 90 percent.

It’s believed that Obama’s Black and Hispanic support — a massive 93 and 71 percent — ensured his reelection, but it’s a little more complicated. Yes, the POC vote is how Obama carried Florida despite managing just 37 percent of the white vote, the same as Joe Biden in 2020 when he lost the state. However, Obama won the white vote in Iowa outright. He performed better than Biden among white voters in Ohio and Wisconsin, where white voters are roughly 85 percent of the electorate.

NBC and CNN polls have shown Harris expanding her lead among white voters with a college degree. Hillary Clinton had a five-point margin with that demo, and Biden had nine. Harris’s lead was 18 points in the CNN poll and 14 points in the NBC poll. White voters without a college degree were about 32 percent of the 2020 electorate. That’s almost equal to all minority voters.

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There’s a compelling argument that Democrats are better off diversifying their vote across the nation. Most Black people live in either solidly Democratic states like New York, California, and Maryland or Republican-dominated states where, as Richard Pryor said, they have “white folks who scare white folks.”

White voters turn out in greater numbers than minority voters (for many reasons that usually have to do with historical voter suppression). Forty-three percent of eligible white voters participated in the past three elections, while just 27 percent of Black and 19 percent of Hispanic voters did so. In such a racially polarized electorate, turnout means everything. The NBC poll shows Trump leading Harris by two points (49 to 47 percent) in a more favorable GOP environment with greater turnout among men, white voters, and specifically white voters without college degrees. However, Harris leads Trump by three points (49 to 46 percent) in a more favorable Democratic environment with greater turnout among women, white voters with college degrees, and voters of color. Women are already a larger portion of the electorate and they are certainly more motivated to vote — abortion is now the top issue among voters polled.

We can still win this, but if we’re sweating, it’s not because of Black men or Black Gen Zers on their TikToks. It’s white men who’ll burn the world because a woman laughed at them once.