TRUMP CARVES INTO TRADITIONAL DEM CONSTITUENCY
Donald Trump is carving into a surprising traditional Democratic constituency — Black voters — that could spell troubling news for Joe Biden in 2024.
New polls show Trump making inroads among Biden’s base that carried him to the presidency in 2020, helping catapult the former president to a narrow 5-point lead over Biden.
Despite Biden’s hollow and totally predictable primary victory in heavily-Black South Carolina, independents and some Democrats are abandoning the president nine months before the election.
Trump led Biden by a 47-42 point margin in the latest poll by NBC, a media organization that is not exactly friendly to Trump.
MSNBC — a liberal stalwart — aired a segment last week in which several Black voters in a South Carolina barbershop said they were considering Trump because of his economic track record. Biden easily carried South Carolina but faced only token opposition from an obscure Minnesota congressman and author Marianne Williamson. Not much of a competition.
The Biden campaign has been hammering voters with the argument that the economy is doing better with Biden.
Voters don’t seem to be buying it, based on high inflation and a sense that working voters are having trouble making ends meet under the current president. The NBC poll showed Biden getting clobbered on immigration and the economy, trailing Trump by more than 20 points on which candidate is better for the economy and more than 30 points on which candidate is better at handling immigration.
And a recent New York Times/Siena College poll revealed that only seven in 10 Black voters in six swing states said they would support Biden this election year — a 20-point drop from 2020.
Most of those Black voters are now considering voting for Trump — which could be devastating to Democrats.
Biden won on the backs of Black voters in the primary and general election four years ago.
“You’re the reason I’m president,” Biden told a mostly Black crowd. “You’re the reason Donald Trump is a loser, and you’re the reason we’re gonna win and beat him again.”
Now with polls showing Trump ahead, Biden is not quite so optimistic.
It’s still nine months before the election, and Black voters could move back toward Biden again as the voting date gets closer.
But Democrats are clearly worried about the potential ramifications of Biden’s base weakening.
It’s one reason some Democrats are clamoring for former first lady Michelle Obama to get into the race and supplant Biden as the nominee. Expect the Michelle Obama talk to heat up as the Democratic convention draws near.