Black Voters Shift, Kamala Harris Faces Election Challenges

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New York: Support for US Vice President Kamala Harris among likely Black voters has increased since President Joe Biden stepped down from the race, according to a new poll. However, the poll also shows an uptick in support for former Republican President Donald Trump among this key voting bloc as the November presidential election approaches.

The survey, released Saturday by The New York Times and Siena College, revealed that nearly 80 percent of likely Black voters would support Harris if the pre-election were held today, with the choices being either her or Trump.

Harris secured 78 percent of backing in the poll, compared to Biden’s 74 percent before he withdrew from the race. Biden, however, had received support from 90 percent of Black voters during the 2020 election.

The poll also showed that 15 percent of Black voters would choose Trump, a 6-point increase from four years ago. Additionally, around seven percent said they were undecided or refused to answer.

The survey found that 56 percent of likely Black voters were “almost certain” they would vote, 31 percent said they were “very likely” to vote, and seven percent said they were “somewhat likely.”

Only one percent of respondents said they were “not very likely” to vote, and four percent indicated they were “not at all likely” to cast their ballot.

Harris’s candidacy has energized young Black voters, with a September Washington Post/Ipsos poll of 1,083 Black Americans revealing that 69 percent were “absolutely certain to vote” in November, an increase from 62 percent in April when Biden was still in the race.

Black voters in battleground states also appear to favor Harris over Trump, with 78 percent of registered Black voters across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin saying they would support the Democratic nominee if the election were held today, according to a Howard Initiative on Public Opinion survey conducted last month.

However, a separate poll from The Times/Siena survey of likely male voters nationally showed Trump leading Harris with a sizable margin—51 percent to 40 percent.

Democratic strategists have expressed concern that Harris needs to bolster her support among Black and Latino men to defeat Trump, who has gained ground with both groups. Former President Barack Obama made an appeal to Black male voters on behalf of the Harris campaign during a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this week, though his comments faced some backlash.

“We have not yet seen the same kind of energy and turnout in all corners of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running,” Obama said, referring to “reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities.”

The latest Times/Siena poll was conducted from September 29 to October 6 among 589 Black voters, including 548 who identify as Black alone and 41 who identify as Black in combination with another race or ethnicity. The margin of error for the full sample is 5.6 percentage points.