The Grind:
There are signs that black Americans are slowly moving away from the Democratic Party . While this shift is far less dramatic than the huge numbers of Hispanic Americans who have abandoned the party, it’s happening nonetheless. This dynamic bears close attention as the November midterm elections beckon.
And as we’ve seen repeatedly, in close elections, even a 1%-2% shift in support can mean the difference between victory and defeat. The Real Clear Politics average of polls for the generic congregational vote, which asks participants which party’s candidate they would vote for if the election were held today, currently favors Republicans by 0.9%.
The Details:
The final RCP average ahead of the 2020 election favored Democrats by 6.8%. Aside from a tie in one October 2019 poll, Republicans lagged in every poll included in RCP’s generic vote data.
On Friday, Rasmussen , a right-leaning pollster, reported that 66% of black respondents said they would vote for a Democratic candidate and 21% for a Republican. A decidedly more left-leaning poll from Politico /Morning Consult released on Oct. 3 found that 74% of black voters surveyed said they would prefer a Democratic candidate while 14% would choose a Republican.
For the sake of argument, let’s go with the more liberal results. Just 74% of black people would support a Democratic candidate today, yet two years ago, 92% of black people cast their ballot for Joe Biden. Likewise, 14% of black people would vote for a Republican, but only 8% voted for Trump in 2020. This does not translate into a point-for-point decline because Biden is not on the ballot. It does, however, show a distinct directional shift in voter sentiment. Read more…