President Biden and the Black Vote

When it comes to the way in which African Americans are likely to vote in the 2024 presidential election, history suggests that President Joe Biden should be confident. To begin, more than 80% of African Americans identify as Democrats. Of that group, at least 87% have voted for the Democratic nominee in every presidential election since 2000 – though that number has steadily declined since 2012. Most polls found that President Biden garnered roughly 90% of the Black vote in 2020. This is stronger than Black support was for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (88%), but is notably lower than the percentage who supported Barack Obama in 2008 (95%) and 2012 (93%). Overall, Blacks comprised 17% of all Democratic voters in 2022 according to the Pew Research Center. By contrast, just 1% of all Republican voters were Black. Further in Biden’s favor is the fact that roughly one-third of all Americans identify as Democrats, as compared to the roughly one-fourth of Americans who identify as Republicans. Importantly, race played a major role in Biden’s decision to run for the presidency in 2020. He responded to then-President Donald Trump’s muddled moral messaging regarding the racist debacle in Charlottesville in 2017. Biden said,...