How young black voters could break Biden — and why Democrats are worried

[Note:  This item comes from friend Robert Berger.  DLH]

How young black voters could break Biden — and why Democrats are worried
Police brutality has spurred young African Americans to take to the streets. But it’s far from clear they’ll go to the polls.
By ELENA SCHNEIDER and LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ
Jun 5 2020
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/05/black-voters-biden-301850

In late January, Black Lives Matter commissioned eight focus groups of young black voters in swing states to drill down on a problem for Democrats since Barack Obama left office: why they weren’t excited to vote. One black man from Philadelphia told a pollster that his mother and grandfather had voted over the years, and “all of them got nothing. So why should I participate in the same process?”

The focus groups were conducted before unrest swept the country in response to the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police. It also preceded the outbreak of a pandemic that’s ravaged the country and an economic downturn that’s left more than 40 million unemployed.

At the center of all three crises are black Americans

In response, Democrats have urged African Americans to channel their frustrations into voting. But for younger black voters, many of whom are protesting in dozens of American cities, that requires trust in a systemthat they believe has done little for them or their families. Joe Biden is struggling to connect with young voters, particularly those of color, according to public and private polling — a serious problem for the former vice president that started during the presidential primary.

This week’s demonstrations are an inflection point for the Democratic Party that could engage these voters or further alienate them from the political process, according to more than a dozen Democratic pollsters, strategists, organizers and lawmakers. The difference-maker for Democrats in November, they said, isn’t whether President Donald Trump will peel off a small proportion of black men as he’s trying to do — but whether Biden can persuade young black voters in battleground states not to sit out the election. 

“This is a moment where people are disillusioned in institutions,” said Branden Snyder, executive director of Detroit Action, a grassroots organization that works to mobilize black and brown voters from economically marginalized communities. “I’m worried that a lot of our first-time voters, and a lot of them are young voters, are going … to completely opt out of the system.”

Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked on Obama’s campaigns, called the protests an “opportunity to reconnect and reengage this cynical and disillusioned segment of the electorate.” But he warned that for Democrats, young black men “were the most problematic” for the party, since that group’s participation dropped the most from 2012 to 2016. 

“But there’s also ample opportunity for Democrats to [screw] this up,” Belcher added.

Democratic margins among African Americans dropped 3 percentage points from 2016 to 2018, according to data from Democratic data firm Catalist. The slip sparked some speculation among Democrats that Trump and the GOP might be gaining traction among nonwhite voters. But Catalist as well as several Democratic pollsters said the decline wasn’t surprising because midterm electorates tend to tilt conservative, and maintained that support for Democrats among black voters has remained steady.

Biden will no doubt win a large majority of black voters, at least 9 in 10 of whom have voted for Democrats in recent elections. Democratic pollsters said the party should worry less about Trump winning over black men and more about those who are ambivalent about Biden and the party.

The must-win swing voters for Democrats, said Nse Ufot, executive director of New Georgia Project, “are people who swing between not voting and voting, not necessarily between parties.” Ufot’s group registers and mobilizes young black voters in Georgia, a state Democrats think they could make competitive.

Trump at times does emphasize issues of importance to black men, including with his Super Bowl ad on criminal justice reform and the economy, said Justin Myers, CEO of the progressive group For Our Future. But Myers called the president’s outreach “lip service” aimed at “trying to suppress the vote” of black men. 

Even as Trump’s campaign tries to court black men, the president casts black people as outside his base and outside of his movement: “MAGA loves the black people,” Trump said Saturday on his way to the SpaceX launch in Florida.

A Monmouth University poll released this week found that Biden won voters under 35 by 25 percentage points. But only a third of young voters viewed the presumptive nominee favorably, versus 59 percent who viewed him unfavorably. Trump’s favorability among young voters is worse — two-thirds of them have a negative view of him. Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling has also found that Biden has less support among black men under 50 (70 percent) than among black women (92 percent). 

“They don’t want Trump to win, but the question is: Can you convince them that they want Biden to win? That difference — between not wanting Trump and wanting Biden — that’s the difference we’re seeking for turning out thousands of votes in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin,” said Josh Ulibarri, a Democratic pollster. 

To win over young African Americans, Biden might need to acknowledge his past support for strict police tactics and a criminal justice system that’s long discriminated against minorities, said black organizers and Democratic operatives in swing states.

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