President Joe Biden has suffered a significant decline in support of Black voters from the 2000 elections in the key battleground states of both Pennsylvania and Michigan, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Sunday.
In Pennsylvania, 56.2% of surveyed Black voters say they would vote for Biden today, down 20 percentage points from those who say they voted for him four years ago. In Michigan, 54.4% of surveyed Black voters say they back Biden, down 22 percentage points from those who say they voted for him in 2020.
About 15% of Black voters support a third-party candidate.
David Paleologos, who directs Suffolk's Political Research Center and led the poll, told USA Today that while there is an opportunity for Biden to attract some third-party voters, the president faces the unique challenge of needing to retain a high level of backing from 2020 while having little room to boost support.
Other results from the poll include:
- Former President Donald Trump's Black voter support is up slightly from 2020, with 10.8% backing him in Pennsylvania, compared to about 8% four years ago, and with 15.2% supporting him in Michigan, compared to 9% in the last presidential election.
- In Pennsylvania, 16% of surveyed Black men back Trump, compared to 6% of Black women. In Michigan, 22% of Black men support Trump, compared to 9% of Black women.
- A third-party candidate in Pennsylvania is backed by 16.4% of Black respondents: 7.6% support independent Cornel West, 7.4% back independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 1% back Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and 0.4% back Libertarian Chase Oliver.
- In Michigan, results are similar. Kennedy gets 8% of surveyed Black voters' support, West gets 6.2 %, Stein 1%, and Oliver 0.2%.
- Another 13.8% of Black voters in both states say they are undecided.