{"id":13964,"date":"2023-09-07T15:57:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T15:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13964"},"modified":"2023-09-07T15:57:10","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T15:57:10","slug":"donald-trumps-eternally-unrealized-dream-of-swaying-the-black-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13964","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s eternally unrealized dream of swaying the Black vote"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Philip Bump<\/a>,<\/em> Washington Post<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of Donald Trump\u2019s most insightful assessments of his relationship with Black voters came a few weeks after he won the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the end,\u201d Trump said<\/a> in an interview with the New York Times, his opponent Hillary Clinton \u201cdidn\u2019t get the African-American vote and we ended up close to 15 points, as you know. We started off at one, we ended up with almost 15.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd more importantly,\u201d he continued, \u201ca lot of people didn\u2019t show up, because the African-American community liked me. They liked what I was saying. So they didn\u2019t necessarily vote for me, but they didn\u2019t show up, which was a big problem that she had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was true. Analysis released in 2018 showed<\/a> that millions of people who\u2019d backed Barack Obama\u2019s reelection in 2012 failed to vote in 2016. A third of them were Black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once he was president, Trump\u2019s pitch changed. His campaign-trail rhetoric about giving him a shot demanded that he present a picture of success. So he and his team created one, pointing to things<\/a> like low unemployment and specific items of legislation to declare that his was the most beneficial presidency for Black Americans since Abraham Lincoln<\/a>. It\u2019s hard to know the extent to which Trump himself believed this pitch, but a lot of his supporters embraced it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also hard to know the extent to which this was rationalization<\/a>, an effort to rebut criticisms of his approach to race by insisting that Black Americans loved him. If Black Americans supported Trump in large numbers despite his history of controversial and explicitly racist comments, it suggests that those comments were overblown in importance by a left that is seen as using race as a cudgel. It would, in essence, validate a lot of White grievance politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s still trying to make this pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, he posted<\/a> a celebratory statement on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMINORITY VOTERS ARE ABANDONING CROOKED JOE BIDEN & THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR \u2018TRUMP,\u2019 ” he wrote. \u201cTHANK YOU, A VERY WISE DECISION!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The apparent trigger for this statement was analysis from the Times showing a softening of support<\/a> for President Biden<\/a> among non-White Americans. In Times polling conducted by Siena College, Biden\u2019s support from Black and Hispanic Americans has slipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polling of voters in recent elections conducted by Pew Research Center shows<\/a> such a shift among Asian and Hispanic voters as well as Americans who are multiracial or fall into other racial categories. The lines below mostly move to the right since 2018, showing more favorable margins for Republican candidates in House or the presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Times data shows a progression of this shift in recent polling looking at a 2024 rematch of Trump and Biden. Hence Trump\u2019s celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His allies continue to suggest that this is a function of Trump. After he was arrested in Georgia last month, Trump allies posited that his mug shot was somehow a moment of inspiration for Black Americans, an obviously fraught<\/a> suggestion. Trump on Tuesday also shared a post on Truth Social featuring an interview with a Black Trump supporter; the person sharing the video pointed<\/a> to Trump\u2019s 2020 campaign patter as reasons for Black Trump support. The person in the video had a more personal reason to support Trump, though: As president, Trump had granted him clemency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that aside, there are real questions about the extent to which non-White Americans and Black Americans in particular will remain consistent Democratic voters over time. It\u2019s worth remembering that the alternative here isn\u2019t necessarily that they become Republican voters. It may be that those potential voters simply don\u2019t vote at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a calculus that applies here, as political campaigns are aware. Flipping a vote from your opponent is a net gain of two votes in the final margin: You gain a vote and your opponent loses one. But getting a supporter of your opponent to stay home is a net gain of one vote: Your opponent simply loses one. That\u2019s what Trump was celebrating in late 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s already the case that Black, Hispanic and other non-White voters make up disproportionately less<\/a> of the electorate than do White voters. To some extent this is a function of age: Older Americans are more likely to be White, and older Americans are also more likely to vote. It is also a function of systemic challenges from immigration status to obstacles for lower-income Americans to cast ballots (like less consistent housing or work schedules).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of it is also disinterest, of course. Polling released on Wednesday by USA Today, conducted by Suffolk University, assessed the composition of people who identify themselves as unlikely to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are disproportionately people of color,\u201d USA Today\u2019s Susan Page and Ken Tran write<\/a>. \u201cWhile exit polls of voters found that whites comprised 67% of the electorate in 2020, they are only 51% of the nonvoters in this survey. Black voters made up 13% of the 2020 electorate but 15% of the nonvoters. Latinos were 13% of those who voted in the last presidential election but 18% of nonvoters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among Americans overall, including Black voters, there\u2019s also been a move away from party identification. Analysis of the General Social Survey shows how the percentage of Black Americans identifying as independents or members of third parties has increased, particularly in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here, again, is the alternative: Disaffection with a party doesn\u2019t mean alliance with the other party. In fact, many independents who lean toward one party or the other do so less because they like the party they lean toward and more because they dislike<\/em> the opposition<\/a>. Someone who\u2019s indifferent about Biden isn\u2019t necessarily someone who likes Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Trump (and other Republicans) will take the net gain of one even if they don\u2019t get the net gain of two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the subtext to Trump\u2019s comments in late 2016, incidentally. A few weeks before the election, Bloomberg reported on the Trump campaign\u2019s efforts to swing turnout \u2014 including an effort to suppress turnout<\/a> among Black voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether that effort was particularly robust or successful doesn\u2019t really matter. For all of Trump\u2019s ongoing effort to present himself as the increasing choice of Black voters, he would not complain loudly if Black turnout was down substantially next year, just as he didn\u2019t complain seven years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Philip Bump is a Washington Post columnist based in New York. He writes the newsletter How To Read This Chart and is the author of The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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