How Trump nearly doubled his support from Black voters
New data shows historic gains made by the president among this racial demographic.
Trump is the first Republican presidential nominee in nearly half a century to win at least 15 percent of this bloc, according to the Pew Research Center, two points higher than exit polls showed. This means Trump nearly doubled his support from Black voters compared with 2020, increasing from 5 to 10 percent among women and from 12 to 21 percent among men.
Reports attributed this shift to several factors: the appeal of MAGA’s swaggering brand to Black men, the resurgence of Black conservatives after Barack Obama’s presidency and a generational rift among the nation’s most uniform bloc.
Republican strategists in the post-civil rights era believed that if their candidates could win just 20 percent of Black voters, the party would have a stronghold on the White House and “become a majority party.” Trump came closer to that number than Ronald Reagan and every Republican presidential candidate since. Black Republicans are already pushing Trump and the party to take outreach to Black voters seriously if they want to maintain control of Congress.
Trump’s improvement isn’t due to his delivery on campaign promises or better outcomes for Black voters. Though his continued support of historically Black colleges is welcome, he hasn’t kept his word on nearly any other policy promise made to the group. Their economic situation is worsening: Unemployment is up; income and homeownership are down. And it isn’t his style or persona that is winning them over. Only 5 percent of Black Americans strongly approve of his performance, earning him the group’s lowest approval rating since 1983, when Reagan opposed creating a federal holiday for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. So, what explains Trump’s success?
The easy but incorrect answer is that a growing number of Black Americans are comfortable voting against their interests. The truth is that their party loyalty is fraying and more of them are less likely to link their personal interests to the group’s. A century ago, about 90 percent of Black people lived in the South, creating political bonds as they survived oppression. Scholars have chronicled how segregation and injustice shaped the group’s long-standing solidarity at the ballot box, making civil rights the basis for its politics. But the 1960s were many elections ago — the vast majority of Black voters today were born after the end of Jim Crow and after the Great Migration diffused the Black experience beyond the South. Trump is the first Republican president to benefit from the resulting diversification.
There’s a wide-ranging realignment happening in American politics. The usual cleavages along racial, educational and class lines are changing, and Black America is not immune. A recent study found that 3 in 5 Black voters prioritize health care and cost-of-living concerns over civil rights policy. Younger ones are less partisan, consider racial identity differently in their politics and think most about socioeconomic mobility. Moreover, the Black immigrant population has doubled in the past two decades, and 1 in 5 Black people are either foreign-born or the children of immigrants. In a two-party republic, especially a polarized one, changes in loyalty to the Democratic Party mean some increased support for Republicans.
Perhaps Trump’s campaign sensed the opportunity was ripe for seizing, but if that’s true, the outreach did not reflect it. At a 2024 campaign stop in South Carolina, Trump complained about his criminal indictments before adding: “A lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me. … It’s been pretty amazing but possibly, maybe, there’s something there.” He attended a conference of Black journalists in Chicago where he questioned whether Kamala Harris was Black and amplified false claims that Black immigrants in Ohio were eating their neighbors’ pets. Trump’s success is because an evolving electorate made room for him, not the other way around.
Ideological diversity among Black voters, despite a history of partisan voting, mirrors most groups in America; they are not a monolith. And they are not static, either. Because of the successes and failures of previous generations, their politics, allegiances and priorities change. This generation of Black voters is the first to grow up in an accessible democracy and witness a Black president and vice president — of course their politics have evolved.
There have been three times when 95 percent of Black voters supported the same presidential candidate: during Reconstruction; in 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was effectively on the ballot; and in the Obama campaigns. But rather than signal the beginning of a new politics — such as the idea of a post-racial America in 2008 — maybe these moments were the culmination of the previous struggle. Reconstruction facilitated democratic participation denied at the country’s founding; the civil rights era realized the progress sought during Reconstruction; Obama’s presidency was a product of a half-century of Black electoral solidarity shaped by civil rights legislation.
Trump’s historic showing suggests the realignment underway includes Black voters who are willing to give precedence to factors other than the parties’ rhetoric or records on racial equality. That doesn’t mean Republicans will soon hit their holy grail share of 20 percent nationally. If history is a guide, the party is more likely to squander this opportunity than to appreciate it. Next year’s midterms will offer the best clue as to whether the increased Black support is the party’s or if it is Trump’s alone. Either way, the game is changing.
Fox News is reporting that ICE agents recovered a loaded Glock 19 in Roberts’ vehicle.
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