Biden Loses Support Among Black Men

Biden faces a dual-natured challenge to shore up his support with Black Americans, one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituencies.

Perhaps the most urgent: More Black men said they plan to back Donald Trump this fall, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll of seven swing states.

While most Black men said they intend to support Biden, some 30% of them in the poll said they were either definitely or probably going to vote for the former Republican president. There isn’t comparable WSJ swing-state polling from 2020, but Trump received votes from 12% of Black men nationwide that year, as recorded by AP VoteCast, a large poll of the electorate.In the WSJ poll, 11% of Black women said they were either definitely or probably going to vote for Trump. In 2020, the AP poll found, 6% of Black women nationwide backed Trump.

’ I think winning back more Black men is going to be key for him,” Michael Bocian, a Democratic pollster who conducted the WSJ survey, said of Biden. Bocian completed the poll along with the company of Tony Fabrizio, a Republican. Fabrizio, who worked for a pro-Trump super political-action committee when the survey was conducted, has since joined the Trump campaign.

On the other hand, while Black women are less likely than Black men to support Trump, some are exploring other options, including third parties and potentially staying home.

In a sign that Biden hasn’t yet won commitments from many of these voters, some 42% of Black women in the survey fell into a group that the Journal pollsters say are up for grabs in the ele…  Read morection, or still persuadable in their vote choice. These voters say they have not yet decided on a candidate, might vote for an independent or third-party option or are likely—but not certain—to back one of the major-party candidates.