Young Black Voters May Be the Key to a Biden Victory鈥擨f They Vote For Him

Surveys show that, rather than reflexively voting Democratic, young Black voters are pessimistic any Democrat can make a difference.

Most political analysts define 鈥溾€� as those who swing their support from one party to the other between election cycles鈥攄etermining winners and losers in the process.

According to this conventional wisdom, the 鈥渟wingiest鈥� voters are in the Midwest, who supposedly hold the .

Meanwhile, by contrast, pundits often portray Black Americans as an undifferentiated mass鈥攍oyal Democrat-supporting foot soldiers who will execute their mission for The Team on Tuesday as long as some on Sunday.

If these depictions have not already expired, they are certainly growing stale. Having , we can tell you that those of the past are an endangered species鈥攊n the Midwest and elsewhere. These days, the only choice that most Americans make鈥攊ndeed, the choice that typically 鈥渟wings鈥� the election outcome鈥攊s whether to vote at all.

That brings us to the characterization of Black Americans as Democratic loyalists.

Our new survey of 1,215 鈥攃onducted July 1-9 in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia鈥攔eveals that while those over 60 remain among the most reliable of Democratic voters, and those between 40-59 are still pretty locked in as well, those under 30 (whom we oversampled to comprise half of our sample) are anything but.

Not sold on Biden

Only 47% of those who we surveyed plan to vote for the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden. (The survey was conducted before Biden announced Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate.) That鈥檚 roughly the same percentage who have anything positive to say when asked what 鈥渙ne or two words come to mind鈥� about the former vice president.

Cathy Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who studies Black youths鈥� political views, summed up this attitude in a recent : 鈥淭hey鈥檝e seen the election of Black mayors, they鈥檝e seen the election of the first Black president, and they鈥檝e also seen that .鈥�

Chart from , CC-BY-ND. Source: . Get the data.

Not sold on voting

These young Black Americans may well sit things out in November, just as when their behavior swung that election to Trump as much as anything else did.

In our poll, 31% of Black Americans under 30 say they probably won鈥檛 vote in this election. That may sound pretty good, given the .

But survey respondents of all stripes tend to wildly overestimate their intention to vote. Indeed, about half of our Black survey respondents under 30 say they don鈥檛 often vote because it 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 make a difference,鈥� providing a somewhat more realistic estimate of the percentage who will probably just stay home鈥攁nd not search for a stamp to mail in their ballot, either.

And that number does not even take into account the turnout-depressing effects of efforts across the country, the pandemic, or the heavy distrust of mail-in voting that young Black people tend to express. Only 64% of young people in our sample say they trust the state to report their vote accurately, and only 30% say they plan to take advantage of mail-in voting.

Not sold on the Democratic Party

Such cynicism on the part of young Black Americans is reflected in the lukewarm feelings they tend to have toward the Democratic Party more generally.

Only 47% of them say that the party is welcoming to Black Americans, and only 43% say they trust Democrats in Congress to do what鈥檚 best for the Black community. Perhaps most strikingly, unlike their older counterparts, only half of those under 30 view the Democrats as any better than the Republicans on these scores.

In both the survey responses and in the focus groups we conducted of young Black Americans in these same states, we heard repeated frustration toward what they view as a Democratic Party that expects their vote but doesn鈥檛 really do anything to deserve it other than claim to be 鈥渓ess racist鈥� than the alternative.

As one of our focus group respondents put it, 鈥淚 think at the end of the day, they all have the same agenda.鈥�

In short, it appears that for Black America, the future is not necessarily 鈥渂lue.鈥� Electorally speaking, it is not necessarily anything at all. Moving forward, in the only way that term really makes much sense anymore.

This story originally appeared in . It has been edited for 大象传媒 Magazine.

David C. Barker is a professor of government and director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.聽

Sam Fulwood III is a fellow in the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, where his work focuses on the intersection of race, public policy, elections, media and popular culture.