Five possible explanations for the increases in support, particularly among young men.
In 2016, Donald J. Trump became the Republican nominee
and ultimately won the presidency after calling many Mexican immigrants rapists
and falsely claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
Eight years later, the polls suggest that he might well
return to the White House by faring better among Black and Hispanic voters
combined than any Republican presidential nominee since the enactment of the
Civil Rights Act in 1964.
How is this possible? It’s a question I get often, and
the latest College polls of Black and Hispanic
voters nationwide represent our best effort at answering it.
Like our other surveys this cycle, the polls
find Mr. Trump faring unusually well for a Republican among Black and
Hispanic voters. Overall, Kamala Harris is ahead, 78 percent to 15 percent,
among Black voters, and she’s leading, 56-37, among Hispanic voters.
Almost any way we can measure it, Mr. Trump is running as
well or better among Black and Hispanic voters as any Republican in recent
memory. In 2020, Joe Biden’s Black support was 92 percent among major-party
voters; his Hispanic support was 63 percent, according to latest estimates.
The poll offers plenty of insight into Mr. Trump’s
strengths and Ms. Harris’s weaknesses, but it does not offer a simple,
definitive answer. This may be unsatisfying, but it should not be surprising.
After all, analysts are still debating whether Mr. Trump’s strength among white
working-class voters is attributable to the economy, racism, ideology, sexism,
Hillary Clinton’s liabilities or one of countless other theories. There still
isn’t a definitive answer, even with the benefit of the final results and almost
a decade of research.
The truth is there are many explanations and they’re hard
to untangle. Here, I’ll offer five explanations offered by the survey. This
list is not comprehensive — not even close. But each one plays a role in the
story.
Before going on, an important thing to keep in mind:
While Mr. Trump is doing far better than prior Republicans, he is still far
from winning a majority of the Black or Hispanic vote. As a consequence, many
of the factors helping Mr. Trump apply only to a minority of Black and Hispanic
voters. Even so, Democrats have typically won these groups by such wide margins
that even modest support by Black or Hispanic voters can lay the groundwork for
politically significant gains.
- They
don’t mind the dog whistles
To liberals, Mr. Trump’s views on race, crime and
immigration are little more than racist dog whistles.
Many Black and Hispanic voters feel similarly, but a
surprising number hear those dog whistles and like what they’re hearing.
- Around
40 percent of Black voters and 43 percent of Hispanic voters say they
support building a wall along the Southern border. Similarly, 45 percent
of Hispanic voters and 41 percent of Black voters say they support
deporting undocumented immigrants.
- Half
of Hispanic voters and nearly half — 47 percent — of Black voters say that
crime in big cities is a major problem that’s gotten out of control.
That’s essentially the same as the share of white voters (50 percent) who
say the same.
The support for Mr. Trump’s views extends beyond issues
related to race and immigration. A majority of Black and Hispanic voters seem
to sympathize with his “America First” foreign policy, saying that America
ought to pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems at
home. Previous surveys have found that a substantial share of Black and
Hispanic voters agree with Mr. Trump on trade as well.
Or put differently: There’s a lot about Mr. Trump’s core
populist, conservative message that resonates with a sizable chunk of Black and
Hispanic voters.
- They’re not offended; they might even be entertained
Of course, Mr. Trump hasn’t just used dog whistles in his
campaigns. Sometimes, he’s used a bullhorn.
During his time in national politics, he has offended
millions of Black and Hispanic voters, including by recently saying that
Haitian refugees eat cats and dogs and that undocumented immigrants
are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
But a sizable minority of Black and Hispanic voters
aren’t necessarily so offended.
Overall, 20 percent of Black voters say that those
offended by Mr. Trump take him too seriously, while 78 percent agree people
have good reason to be offended.
Similarly, 40 percent of Hispanic voters say people
offended by Mr. Trump take his words too seriously, while 55 percent say
there’s good reason to be offended. And importantly, only about one-third of
Hispanic voters say Mr. Trump is talking about them when he’s
talking about problems with immigration.
Why aren’t more Black and Hispanic voters offended by Mr.
Trump? One possible factor: He hasn’t necessarily offended them so much
recently.
While most voters have been offended by Mr. Trump at some
point, a substantial 53 percent of Hispanics and 35 percent of Black voters
said they hadn’t found anything he has said recently to be offensive. Those
tallies are down a bit from earlier in the year — perhaps the remarks about
Haitian refugees are a factor — but I’d guess more voters would have said they
had been offended recently if we had asked the same question in the heart of
the 2016 campaign.
Another factor: A sizable number of Black and Hispanic
voters appear to be entertained by Mr. Trump.
2024 Election: Live Updates
Updated
Oct. 12, 2024, 8:43 p.m. ETOct. 12, 2024
- Trump
hits Coachella, campaigning once again in a blue state.
- On
the trail, Vance is dogged by more questions about Trump’s loss in 2020.
In this survey, we asked voters whether they thought Ms.
Harris or Mr. Trump was more “fun” — a question that could potentially capture
everything from Ms. Harris’s claim to “joy” to Mr. Trump’s “locker-room talk.”
Overall, voters said Ms. Harris was more “fun” than Mr.
Trump — she even led on “fun” among white voters, even though Mr. Trump led
among white voters in the poll.
But among Black and Hispanic voters, the story was a bit
more complicated. They do rate Ms. Harris as more “fun,” but by a much narrower
margin than her lead over Mr. Trump in the presidential race. Mr. Trump’s
relative strength on “fun” comes almost entirely from men; he led on the
measure among Hispanic men. Age is a factor, too: Younger voters are far
likelier to find Mr. Trump “fun” with respect to Ms. Harris than voters over
65.
Put all of this together, and Mr. Trump isn’t quite as
unpopular as you might guess among Black and Hispanic voters. Overall, 17
percent of Black voters and 41 percent of Hispanic voters say they have a
favorable view of him.
- It’s
the economy, stupid
It’s obvious, and yet it still doesn't get enough
attention.
Many people assume that Democrats win Black and Hispanic
voters simply because of the party’s commitment to advancing racial equality,
but the role of economic self-interest should not be underestimated. Democrats
started winning Black and Hispanic voters in the 1930s, not in the 1960s,
because Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal helped redefine the Democrats as the
party of the working class, not just the party of the former Confederacy.
Just 20 percent of Hispanic voters and 26 percent of
Black voters say the current economic conditions are good or excellent. More
than half of both groups say they have “often” cut back on groceries over the
last year because of the cost.
This is important for economically vulnerable voters —
especially those who have previously voted for Democrats on the assumption that
they represented their economic interests. Overall, the economy was the
most-cited issue among Black and Hispanic voters when asked what would most
decide their vote this November.
As a celebrity billionaire businessman, Mr. Trump has
always had an advantage on this issue, whether against Mrs. Clinton or Mr.
Biden. Now, Mr. Trump is running again at a time when voters are more
dissatisfied with the economy than before, and when many look back on Mr.
Trump’s presidency as a prosperous and peaceful time. Ms. Harris has a mere
69-25 lead among Black voters who rate the economy as the most important factor
for their vote; Mr. Trump leads, 61-35, among Hispanic voters who say the economy
matters most.
When combined with the rest of Mr. Trump’s populist
pitch, the poll finds that the Democratic core brand advantage as the party of
the working class has eroded. Black and Hispanic voters still see Democrats as
the party of the working class, but only by a 76-18 margin in the case of Black
voters and a 56-35 advantage among Hispanics. It’s a notable shift from
September 2022, when Democrats had a 58-27 lead among Hispanic voters by this
measure.
- The
end of hope and change
Even beyond the poor state of the economy, there’s
something deeper holding Democrats back: a sense that voting for them just
won’t make much of a difference.
Of all the questions in the survey, perhaps the single
worst one for Democrats was on the question of which party best “keeps its
promises.” Just 63 percent of Black voters and 46 percent of Hispanic voters
said “keeps its promises” describes the Democratic Party better than the
Republicans.
Black and Hispanic voters don’t necessarily doubt
Democratic intentions, but they are disappointed in the results. Democrats
fared poorly on questions like whether the party can “fix the problems facing
people like me,” even as they excelled on “understand the problems facing
people like me.”
In the presidential race, few seem to be convinced that
Ms. Harris will make a difference in their lives. Just 50 percent of Hispanic
voters said Ms. Harris would do more to help them personally, while 37 percent
said the same for Mr. Trump. Among Black voters, 73 percent said Ms. Harris
would do more to help them personally, compared with 14 percent who said the
same for Mr. Trump.
Why are Democrats doing so poorly on these measures? Much
of it, of course, is about the state of the economy today. But for a decade
this problem could be heard between the lines — in focus groups and interviews
and polls of Black and Hispanic voters — stemming from a perceived failure of
Mr. Obama’s presidency to bring the kind of change that many hoped it might.
In a way, Democrats are suffering the cost of having held
the presidency for 12 of the last 16 difficult years. The period began with
high hopes, most of all for Black voters. Today, voters remain deeply
dissatisfied with the state of the country and the economy. Great expectations
weren’t met.
- For
a new generation, Trump is ‘normal’
The polls suggest Mr. Trump has made his largest gains
among young Black and Hispanic voters — especially young Black and Hispanic
men.
Overall, he has a 55-38 lead among Hispanic men 45 or
younger. Ms. Harris leads among Black men under 45, but only by 69-27. The
results among 18-to-29-year-old Hispanic and Black men are even more striking,
though the samples are small.
In contrast, Ms. Harris holds far more typical leads for
a Democrat among younger women, with a 68-30 edge among Hispanic women under 45
and 87-6 among young Black women.
These young men came of age long after the civil rights
movement that cemented nearly unanimous Democratic support among Black voters
60 years ago. The youngest were toddlers during the Obama ’08 campaign. They
may not have a vivid memory of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. To them, Mr. Trump
may be “normal” — a fixture of their lives to this point, naturally making it
harder to depict him as a norm-defying “threat to democracy.”
While these events forged and cemented Democratic
loyalties among their elders, today’s young Black and Hispanic voters have come
of age in a different era. There was the political, economic and cultural
upheaval of the Trump era and the pandemic, including lockdowns and vaccine
mandates; the Black Lives Matter movement; and the backlash against “woke” that
followed. They experienced rising cost of goods and housing just as they
entered their first years of independent living.
The poll offers relatively little evidence about how
these events shaped the political views of young Black and Hispanic
men. Prior polling has found a sliver of young Black and Hispanic men
who appear relatively moderate on traditional economic and cultural issues, but
also seem to resent the prevailing “politically correct” or “woke”
cultural norms of their generation. It may also be worth noting that young
voters were especially likely to say Mr. Trump was “fun.”
What’s perhaps most important, however, is that Mr. Trump
has made his largest gains among voters who were political blank slates. If Mr.
Trump was going to surge among groups with traditional loyalties to Democrats,
it makes sense that it manifested among the younger, less engaged voters who
had weak or no previous attachment to the Democratic Party.
This same phenomenon, however, leaves lingering doubts
about whether all of Mr. Trump’s gains will materialize on Election Day. Young
Black and Hispanic men are not the most reliable, high-turnout voters. Indeed,
a disproportionate share of Mr. Trump’s Black and Hispanic supporters say they
will “probably” support Mr. Trump, but not “definitely.”
But whatever happens this November, today’s young Black
and Hispanic voters will be the regular Black and Hispanic voters of the
future. Even if Mr. Trump’s support is not fully realized in the final results
this November, it may only be a matter of time before Republicans break
through.