President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump are running a close race, according to results of several nationwide polls conducted in the runup to the Nov. 5 presidential election. Findings from a new poll published on Monday showed that an emerging trend could turn the tide in favor of a candidate.
What Happened: The proportion of Black Americans who said they were “absolutely certain to vote” fell 12 points from June 2020 to 62%, according to a Washington-Ipsos poll held among 1,331 non-Hispanic Black adults aged 18 years and older, between April 9-16. The margin of sampling error in the results among Black Americans is plus, or minus 3.2 percentage points.
This should be a cause of concern for the Democrats, as this demographic group had a huge role in Biden’s 2020 victory.
The drop in turnout interest was more among younger Black people, who, according to the pollster are typically less enthusiastic about Biden.
The drop in enthusiasm is notable among Black women, who have been the backbone of the Democratic Party. The poll finds 41% of Black people, aged 18 to 39 years, were certain to vote this year, down from 61% in June 2020. Among women in the group, turnout interest dropped from 69% to 39% this year.
Moving over to voting intention, 74% of Black registered voters said they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for Biden. Far less than 14% said they would definitely or probably support Trump, a slight improvement from his performance in 2020.
Twenty percent say they would probably or definitely vote for Robert Kennedy Jr, 4% said the same for professor and activist Cornel West and 9% said they would at least probably vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. But only 1% said they would “definitely vote for” any of the third-party candidates.
Why It’s Important: "I think it's maybe because of the way the economy is going, how inflation is going and then with the whole situation in Palestine and how he's responded to it — it's just made me less impressed with him," said Michayla Crumble, Post reported. She reportedly said she would favor a third-party candidate this time around.
Follow-up interviews by the pollster showed that voters harped on several issues for their apathetic attitude toward voting in general and toward Biden. These include sub-par performance with respect to criminal justice, police and voting rights reforms that he campaigned on. Voters also mentioned the president’s handling of the conflict in the Middle East, which they termed either as a moral disaster or as a conflict that has soaked up U.S. money.
Respondents also said they and their near- and dear ones have been impacted by ballooning costs of groceries, gas and other goods.
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