Joe Biden, Donald Trump step up voter outreach to Black men

President Biden and former President Trump are boosting your messages in relation to black male voters, underlining the political power that the demographic group will have in November.

Although black voters overwhelmingly identify as Democrats, concerns That black men are leaving the party has been circulating since 2020, when Trump secured 12% of support from black voters.

Now, some observers say black men could decide the presidential winner in November.

“I don’t know the path to victory without black men,” said Mondale Robinson, founder of the Black Male Voter Project.

But he added that progress needs to be made with “everyday” black male voters, and not just those who are politically engaged.

“Most black men in this country don’t see themselves involved in any of this,” said Robinson, who is also mayor of Enfield, N.C. “Sixty percent of black men are left out, election after election, after election and [candidates] keep doing the same strategies. So I think to them: what is your path to victory without these black men?”

While the interests of black voters span a range of issues, including education and health care, experts and advocates alike agree that if either party wants to win over black men in time for the election, it will have to focus on economy.

“Black voters this cycle are prioritizing many of the issues we have seen in recent cycles,” said Terrance Woodbury, founding partner of research group HIT Strategies. “But the first is the economy, although I think there is some discrepancy here, because when black voters say economy, we hear them talk about costs, and that’s not necessarily jobs or wages.”

According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 77% of all black voters said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, while 20% of black men said they would vote for Trump.

But while some polls suggest an ideological shift among black men, that doesn’t mean they will show up at the polls on Nov. 7, according to Shelley Wynter, a member of the Georgia Black Republican Council.

“Black men still represent the lowest percentage of participation,” Wynter noted.

Part of what keeps black men away from the polls, he added, is that no one talks about the issues that matter most to them.

“We focus on women because we know that older people and women will be at the polls,” said Wynter, a Trump supporter.

This year, Trump’s team tried to center black male voters in their messaging.

In February, Trump attempted to break into popular culture by introducing a line of sneakers at Sneaker Con in an effort aimed at black men. He also tried to connect with them by referencing their legal troubles, in an apparent attempt to highlight racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

Trump has also indicated that he would consider choosing a black vice president as his running mate, although Robinson doubts that will have any impact on the voting habits of black men.

“They’re thinking that you can use a face that looks like ours to motivate black men to go to the polls, but that doesn’t work,” Robinson said. “They are thinking about black men in the context of the 1960s, when Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael were leaders of a certain sector of black men. These non-voting brethren do not believe that anyone is their leader, and if you are not a trustworthy messenger, you can send Jesus Christ and knock on their door, but you will probably not be able to convince them.”

But Trump’s team is moving forward.

Recently, the former president traveled to the South Bronx neighborhood, in New York, where he spoke to a crowd that included a large proportion of black and Latino residents. And on Saturday he will participate in a round table in Detroit, a city with a black majority.

“President Trump is showing up in Black communities and listening to voters where they live,” Janiyah Thomas, Black media director for the Trump campaign, told The Hill in a statement.

“The polls and all other measures of public support reflect that historic numbers of voters in the black community are abandoning Biden and flocking to President Trump.”

But Woodbury is not convinced that this support for Trump will last until November.

“There is a gender gap between Black men and Black women — where Black men are about 4 points less likely to support Joe Biden than Black women — but that’s a very small gap,” Woodbury told The Hill.

The bigger issue, Woodbury said, is the generation gap.

HIT Strategies found a 30-point gap between young Black voters and older Black voters’ support for Joe Biden.

But the Biden campaign is convinced that the administration’s successes in forgiving student loans, keeping unemployment rates at record lows and passing reforms like banning no-knock warrants, along with Trump’s history of racist comments , will prevent black voters from supporting the former president.

“Donald Trump spent his life and political career disrespecting black men whenever he could: he entered public life by falsely accusing five black men of murder, denigrating the memory of George Floyd, and launched his political career by trying to undermine the first black president as the architect of birtherism,” Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, told The Hill in a statement.

“That’s why the first thing he did after taking over the RNC was close his outreach centers to minorities, and that’s why his campaign has no black outreach program to speak of. President Biden is campaigning by appearing – himself – to win, not ask for, the support of Black Americans. This is what leadership looks like.”

Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist, said black men are a vulnerable demographic right now. The party that talks the most about these vulnerabilities, he added, will be the party that wins the support of black men – and with it, the White House.

“We have to acknowledge the pain and the frustration … and that there is work to do,” Seawright said.

“There are some who do not understand that it is not possible to undo more than 400 years of negligence in one or two election cycles,” he added. “People see these vulnerabilities and want to take advantage of these vulnerabilities, but I’m sure [Black men] we will not be fooled – we see through the fog and understand who has been for us and who has been against us, who will fight for us and who will fight against us, but also who is trying to do things to take away some of the basic foundations that we have recently been able to unlock and enjoy as black men in this country.