Egypt Daily News – The New York Times reported that a poll conducted with Siena College among potential Black voters in the United States found that presidential candidate Kamala Harris has improved her Democratic Party’s position among them since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 U.S. election race, but she still lags significantly behind the level of support Trump received from this crucial demographic for the Democrats.
The survey found that nearly eight out of ten Black voters nationwide said they would vote for Harris, a significant increase from the 74% of Black voters who said they would support Biden before he dropped out of the race in July. But Biden won 90% of the Black voters to reach the White House by a narrow margin in 2020.
The newspaper warned that the decline in Black support for Harris, if it continues, is significant enough to jeopardize her chances of winning key battleground states.
Democrats were relying on a wave of support from Black voters, who were drawn by the opportunity to elect the first Black female president and their aversion to former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, who topped the presidential race with his skepticism about Harris’s racial identity, his comments on “Black jobs,” and his long history of racist attacks on Haitian immigrants.
Nevertheless, Harris remains on track to win a decisive majority of Black voters, but Mr. Biden seems to significantly undermine a long-standing Democratic advantage.
The Republican candidate’s campaign relied on targeted advertisements and sporadic awareness events to attract African American voters, particularly Black men, and saw an increase in support.
About 15% of potential Black voters said they plan to vote for the former president, according to the new poll, an increase of six points from four years ago.
The poll showed that much of the decline in Harris’s support is driven by a growing belief that Democrats, who have long celebrated Black voters as the “backbone” of their party, have failed to deliver on their promises.
40% of African American voters under the age of thirty said that the Republican Party was more likely to fulfill its campaign commitments than the Democrats.
