Recent data suggests that Vice President Kamala Harris may carry a slimmer majority of the Black vote in the 2024 presidential election than previously anticipated.
The New York Times acknowledged on Saturday that Harris has significant work to do in the next few weeks if she's going to achieve the same level of Black support as previous Democrat presidential candidates.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton pulled 92% of the Black vote. In 2020, President Joe Biden pulled a smaller but still commanding 90%. According to the most recent NY Times/Siena College poll from last week, Harris is only earning 78% support among Black voters. Over the last eight years, Black support for the Republican candidate has more than doubled since 2016 and currently stands at 15%.
The steady drift of Black voters away from the Democratic Party can be traced to decades of taking the demographic for granted. The outlet spoke to Black Trump supporters who said that many have grown weary of the Democrats consistent playing of the "race card" while their neighborhoods and incomes degrade under Democratic Party rule.
"They sweep table scraps off the table like we're a trained dog and say, 'This is for you,'" LaPage Drake, 63, of Cedar Hill, Texas, just outside Dallas, said of the Democratic Party. "And we clap like trained seals."
Drake, who owns a tree removal service, said he would back Trump. "Regardless of how people call him racist and stuff, he is for the country of America," Drake said.
Harris has attempted to do a better job of outreach to the younger Black male vote, touring historically Black colleges and universities and scheduling a town hall style event next week with popular podcast "The Breakfast Club."
The poll noted that 75% of Black voters feel Harris would do a better job of handling issues important to them than Trump. Yet that still leaves 17% who feel Trump would do a better job, a colossal jump from when the former president first ran eight years ago.
The NY Times/Siena poll surveyed 589 Black voters from Sept 29. To Oct. 6 with a sampling error of +/- 5.6 percentage points.