Avalon Broaden didn\u2019t vote in 2020, unmotivated by a pair of older male candidates that she felt didn\u2019t really represent her values. Her feelings remained the same this year \u2014 until the race was upended in July and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a woman, she\u2019s Black, and I like her. I genuinely think that means something for this country,\u201d said Broaden, 24, a beauty adviser and freelance artist from Omaha. \u201cI\u2019d rather vote for something I strongly believe in rather than voting in spite of someone.\u201d<\/p>\n
So when Broaden was recently filling out her Medicaid renewal form, she checked the box that would also register her to vote \u2014 and plans to cast a ballot for Harris in November.<\/p>\n
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll finds that the commitment of Black Americans like Broaden to vote this fall has rebounded since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, with Black voters unifying around her candidacy despite lukewarm ratings of Biden\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n
The Post-Ipsos poll of 1,083 Black Americans finds that 69 percent say they are \u201cabsolutely certain to vote\u201d in November, up from 62 percent in April, albeit still lower than 74 percent in June 2020.<\/p>\n
That increase is important for Harris, as she tries to rebuild the multicultural coalition that put Barack Obama in office in 2008 and Biden in 2020. It also mirrors other polls showing that she has gained ground among Black voters in the last two months. Her gains have been more pronounced among Black Americans than the general public, but she has also seen growing support from Americans writ large.<\/p>\n
The increased engagement among a critical Democratic constituency is concentrated among younger Black Americans, especially younger women, who were less enthusiastic about voting this spring.<\/p>\n
The share of Black people under 30 years old saying they are certain to vote this fall is up 15 percentage points from April \u2014 to 47 percent \u2014 and among Black women under 40, turnout interest is up 18 points to 57 percent. Turnout interest among younger Black men also rose, from 43 percent to 51 percent.<\/p>\n
Among Black registered voters, 82 percent say they will \u201cdefinitely\u201d or \u201cprobably\u201d vote for Harris this November, up from 74 percent who said they would support Biden in April, albeit still shy of Biden\u2019s 87 percent mark among Black voters according to 2020 national exit polling. The share saying they would \u201cdefinitely\u201d vote for the Democratic candidate is up from 48 percent for Biden this spring to 68 percent for Harris today.<\/p>\n
A 77 percent majority of Black voters under age 30 say they would support Harris if the election were held today, up from 59 percent who said they would support Biden in April. Among Black women under age 40, Harris\u2019s support has grown by 19 points over Biden\u2019s, from 57 percent to 76 percent.<\/p>\n
Harris\u2019s support is even stronger among other segments of the Black electorate, including 80 percent support among Black men overall and 84 percent among Black women, 86 percent among Black voters ages 40 and older; 86 percent among those with at least a bachelor\u2019s degree; and 81 percent among those with less formal education.<\/p>\n
The Post-Ipsos poll, conducted before Tuesday\u2019s debate between Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump, reflects how much Biden\u2019s exit and Harris\u2019s ascendancy transformed the presidential race. The two candidates are in the midst of a two-month sprint to the Nov. 5 election, and further gains or losses with key voting blocs will be crucial in a toss-up contest.<\/p>\n
Azaria Shaw, a facilities manager from Durham, N.C., didn\u2019t watch the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump \u2014 she has a small child, and a 9 p.m. start time is generally a nonstarter. But the clips she saw afterward left her devastated. She voted for Biden in 2020 to kick Trump out of the White House; after the debate, she felt he was headed right back. She spent the next three weeks furious, half-joking with her friends that she was getting her family\u2019s passports in order.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was terrified. I was angry with the Democrats. I didn\u2019t understand why they didn\u2019t have the foresight to see this was going to happen. Meanwhile, the Republicans are over there writing manifestos,\u201d said Shaw, who is Black and who planned to vote for Biden again in 2024, if dejectedly.<\/p>\n
But when Harris became the nominee, Shaw said she breathed a sigh of relief. She\u2019s put away the passports and picked up a pen \u2014 and spends a few nights a week writing letters encouraging people to vote for Harris.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been involved like this,\u201d she said, not even for Biden. \u201cBut now I feel super positive. I do have some hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
The share of Black voters saying they would definitely or probably vote for Trump (12 percent) has barely shifted from April when 14 percent said they would support the former president, though that is still slightly higher than he received in 2020. Third-party support has plummeted since April, with support for Cornel West dropping from 14 percent to 5 percent and support for Green Party candidate Jill Stein down from 9 percent to 4 percent. Neither Trump nor third-party candidates have benefited from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropping out, despite 20 percent of Black voters saying they would probably vote for him in April.<\/p>\n
Lafayette Cates, 42, a software engineer from Philadelphia, said he voted for Trump in 2020 and plans to do so this year, because he feels that Harris doesn\u2019t fully understand the needs of Black Americans who are descendants of enslaved people. Harris\u2019s father was born in Jamaica; her mother was from India.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe doesn\u2019t come from a background similar to the majority of Black Americans, so I don\u2019t think she can be an effective leader,\u201d he said. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t face what the majority of African Americans face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Black Americans have become sharply more positive toward Harris since she became the party\u2019s standard-bearer. A 72 percent majority of Black Americans have a favorable view of Harris, up from 59 percent in April. Now, nearly half (48 percent) are \u201cvery favorable\u201d of the vice president, up from 28 percent five months ago.<\/p>\n
About 7 in 10 Black Americans say it is important that Harris become the first female president, including 75 percent of Black women and 67 percent of Black men.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a step forward to have a Black woman represented,\u201d said Teandre Meehan, 27, an attorney from St. Louis. \u201cBut I also think Kamala Harris will enact policies that she believes will favor African Americans. I think she understands the plight of African Americans and the ways they\u2019ve been left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition, nearly two-thirds of Black Americans (64 percent) say Harris becoming the second Black president and first president of Asian descent is important, including three-quarters of Black people ages 65 and older (75 percent).<\/p>\n
Harris has higher expectations on her ability to help Black people if she is elected president. About 6 in 10 Black Americans (59 percent) say her policies would help Black people if she were elected. That\u2019s higher than the 48 percent who say Biden\u2019s policies have helped Black people, although that figure is up from 38 percent in April.<\/p>\n
Both Harris and Biden rank higher than Trump: Just 11 percent say Trump\u2019s policies would help Black people if he were elected again, similar to the 13 percent who say he helped Black people when he was in office. Two-thirds predict another Trump presidency would hurt Black people.<\/p>\n
Two-thirds of Black Americans approve of how Biden is handling his job as president (66 percent), while about one-third disapprove (32 percent).<\/p>\n
While Harris\u2019s popularity has grown, Black voters continue to see Trump in a starkly negative light. About 8 in 10 Black Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump and roughly 6 in 10 say they\u2019d be \u201cupset\u201d if he won the election. Three-quarters say Trump is biased against Black people and a similarly large majority say he is biased against women.<\/p>\n
Black Americans trust Harris more than Trump to handle a wide range of issues, often by significantly larger margins than Biden held this spring.<\/p>\n
For example, in April, Black Americans trusted Biden over Trump to handle the economy by 50 percent to 16 percent, today Harris leads Trump by 60 percent to 15 percent on this issue. Biden enjoyed a 45-point margin over Trump in April on trust to handle abortion, which has grown to a 63-point margin for Harris in August. Her smallest advantage is on handling the war between Israel and Hamas \u2014 36 points \u2014 and it\u2019s only slightly bigger than Biden\u2019s 31-point advantage over Trump in April.<\/p>\n
Harris also enjoys a 59-point margin over Trump on trust to protect American democracy among Black Americans, an issue that was not measured in the previous poll.<\/p>\n
Nearly 9 in 10 Black Americans say Harris, 59, is in good enough physical health to serve effectively as president compared with a quarter who say the same for the 78-year-old Trump. About 8 in 10 say she has the mental sharpness it takes to serve as president, compared with 2 in 10 who say Trump does. Eight in 10 Black Americans say Harris is a positive role model for young people while only 1 in 10 say the same for Trump. Over 7 in 10 also say Harris cares about people like them and is honest and trustworthy \u2014 just over 1 in 10 says the same about Trump.<\/p>\n
Harris\u2019s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, enjoys positive favorable ratings among Black Americans, with 52 percent favorable and 13 percent unfavorable. Republican Sen. JD Vance is seen unfavorably by 57 percent of Black Americans, while just 10 percent view him favorably. About one-third of Black Americans say they don\u2019t know enough about each vice-presidential candidate to form an opinion.<\/p>\n
Obama \u2014 who sparked Democratic convention attendees to chant, \u201cYes, she can!\u201d in a speech supporting Harris \u2014 enjoys the highest favorable ratings of anyone measured in this poll: 82 percent of Black Americans are favorable, including 69 percent who feel \u201cstrongly favorable\u201d toward the former president, far above Harris\u2019s 48 percent.<\/p>\n
At the National Association of Black Journalists conference in July, Trump said he \u201cdidn\u2019t know\u201d Harris was Black \u201cuntil a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don\u2019t know, is she Indian or is she Black?\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s attempts to question Harris\u2019s identity appear to have fallen flat or backfired with most Black people. Asked what best describes Harris\u2019s racial or ancestral background, 65 percent say she is \u201cboth Black and Indian,\u201d while 11 percent say she is Black, 7 percent Indian and 16 percent are not sure. Harris has long identified as both Black and South Asian.<\/p>\n
About three-quarters of Black Americans, 75 percent, say Trump\u2019s comments were disrespectful of Harris, including 63 percent who say his remarks were \u201cvery disrespectful.<\/p>\n
And a similar 71 percent of Black Americans say Trump\u2019s comments about Harris\u2019s race were disrespectful toward Black people overall, including 59 percent who say his remarks were very disrespectful toward Black people.<\/p>\n
More broadly, 8 in 10 Black Americans say Harris understands the experiences of Black people in America, compared with about 6 in 10 (59 percent) who say the same about Biden and 13 percent who say the same about Trump.<\/p>\n
More than 8 in 10 Black Americans (86 percent), including the same share of men and women, say Harris understands the experiences of women in America at least somewhat well. Just 10 percent of Black people say the same of Trump, including 9 percent of Black women.<\/p>\n
Black Americans are more likely to say Harris\u2019s race and gender will help her chances of winning the election than hurt her. About 4 in 10 Black Americans (41 percent) say Harris being Black and Asian will make no difference to Americans\u2019 votes. Another 36 percent say her racial identity will make Americans more likely to vote for her, and 2 in 10 (20 percent) say it will make people less likely to vote for her. Similarly, about 4 in 10 Black Americans say Harris being a woman will make people more likely to vote for her, a third say it won\u2019t make a difference and about a quarter say it will make Americans less likely to vote for her.<\/p>\n
Black women (46 percent) are more likely than Black men (36 percent) to say Harris being a woman will make people more likely to vote for her. But Black men are no more likely to say being a woman will hurt Harris, with nearly 4 in 10 of them saying it won\u2019t make a difference.<\/p>\n
Meehan, the attorney from St. Louis, said he worried Harris would face racist and misogynistic attacks, similar to assaults on Obama and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. But he said he\u2019s been impressed with Harris\u2019s ability to parry attacks rooted in race and gender.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she\u2019s been pretty effective so far at just dodging those attacks and just brushing them off,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s just ignoring them and not giving them any airtime or daylight. I\u2019m sure that Kamala Harris knows that is a challenge of hers: She has to win over people that will never vote for a Black person.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Post-Ipsos poll was conducted Aug. 23-Sept. 3 among 1,083 non-Hispanic Black adults ages 18 and older through the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, an ongoing survey panel recruited through random sampling of U.S. households. Results among Black Americans have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points; the error margin is 3.4 points among the sample of 924 Black registered voters.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Avalon Broaden didn\u2019t vote in 2020, unmotivated by a pair of older male candidates that she felt didn\u2019t really represent her values. Her feelings remained the same this year \u2014 until the race was upended in July and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee. \u201cShe\u2019s a woman, she\u2019s Black, and I like her. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9196,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}