Analysis: Polls show that young black voters, particularly men, are leaning toward Trump

CV NEWS FEED // Recent polls show that young black voters, particularly young black men, are quickly trending to the right, to a degree that could be enough to tip next month’s election in favor of former President Donald Trump give.

A recently published one New York Times (NYT) / A poll in Siena found that in a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, 78% of likely black voters prefer Harris, compared to 15% who prefer Trump.

While that appears to be a good margin for Harris, if these Election Day numbers hold three weeks from now, Trump would have the best performance among black voters of any Republican presidential candidate in nearly half a century.

The last Republican candidate to receive at least 15% of the black vote was Gerald Ford, who received about 17% as incumbent president in 1976.

While sources disagree on the exact percentage of the black vote Trump won in 2020, the 15% share he currently reports is undoubtedly a significant improvement from four years ago.

Additionally, the Pew Research Center found that Trump only received about 6% of the black vote in his victory over failed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The former president more than doubled his support among African Americans in just eight years. An in-depth examination of the NYT poll released this weekend shows exactly why.

Young black voters are key

According to the poll, the age group of black voters that most supported Trump was the youngest – ages 18 to 29. 21 percent of this group said they supported Trump.

By comparison, 15% of Black voters ages 30 to 44, 14% of Black voters ages 45 to 64 and 13% ages 65 and older said they supported Trump.

Although these latter percentages are all higher than the percentage of black votes Trump received in the last two election cycles, they are still reflected in the poll results he is polling among black voters in the 18-29 age group put in the shadows.

Since many of the young black voters were not old enough to vote in previous election cycles, their support is likely the key factor in why Trump is on track to win the largest share of the black vote since 1976.

>> JULY: HALF OF THE BLACK FOCUS GROUP SUPPORTS TRUMP

Even if age is not taken into account, the NYT applies One poll showed Trump’s support among black men at 20%. He has a 12% approval rating among black women — still a historically significant percentage for a Republican candidate.

However, Trump’s share of the vote among black men of all age cohorts is still one point smaller than his share among black voters ages 29 and younger, regardless of gender.

While the poll’s results didn’t specify what percentage Trump polled among black male voters between 18 and 29, it’s reasonable to assume from the rest of the data that the number is more than 25%, or perhaps even 30%.

During a CNN broadcast on Monday, CNN senior writer and political analyst Harry Enten emphasized that Trump is gaining influence among younger black voters at a level unheard of for a Republican in recent memory.

“Sometimes there’s a trend line that I’ve never noticed before, and then I’m like, ‘Woah!'” Enten said on television. “That’s one of them.”

The analyst pointed out that, according to “average of recent polls,” Harris’ current lead among black voters ages 18 to 44 is “about half the lead that then-President Barack Obama had in that group at just 12 years ago.

According to the numbers Enten showed on the screen, Harris currently leads Trump among black voters under 45 by about 41 points. For comparison, the Biden-Harris ticket won this group by 53 points in 2020, Clinton won by 63 points in 2016, and Obama won by 81 points in 2012.

A Harris-specific problem?

Enten disagreed with Obama’s heavily scrutinized comments last week in Pittsburgh. The 44th president seemed to suggest, in Enten’s words, that the drastic postponement of the election was “a Kamala Harris-specific problem.”

“This is part of a long-standing trend of young black men moving away from the Democratic Party, and Kamala Harris is just the latest to face this magnitude of younger black men turning to the Republicans,” Enten explained.

He added that the right-wing movement of “black men as a whole” was “part of the same picture.”

Enten also said that while Harris “does better with black women than with black men,” he is still doing more than 20 points worse among black women than Clinton’s lead just eight years ago.

“The bottom line is,” Enten explained, “when you talk about the base of the Democratic Party, you would think that Kamala Harris would do very well with black women because of history, and of course she would be the first black president.”

“But in fact, she is the worst performer for a Democratic candidate among black women since 1960,” he pointed out.