Black voters abandon Joe Biden as midterms drubbing looms

Growing dissatisfaction points to a disaster in November, notably in the swing states where overwhelming black support helped Joe Biden win in 2020.

President Joe Biden is losing the crucial support of black voters, who did more than any other group to get him into the White House.

Six in ten black Americans approve of Biden’s performance, down from about nine in ten during the first six months of his presidency, in polls by Norc Center for Public Affairs Research for the Associated Press.

The growing dissatisfaction points to a disaster for the Democrats in many areas in midterm polls in November, notably the swing states where Biden won in 2020 thanks to overwhelming black support in cities such as Detroit in Michigan, Atlanta in Georgia and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.

Black voters may not switch to the Republican party but many will stay at home rather than vote, unless Biden and the Democrats in Congress pass key measures, such as voting rights and police reforms, community organisers warn.

“What happens in the midterms is the same thing that happened in Virginia in 2021: Democrats will lose, and they will lose big,” said W. Mondale Robinson, founder of the Black Male Voter Project, a group that worked to persuade Georgians to turn out.

He was referring to Virginia’s governor election in November where the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, reversed an early polling deficit, partly due to voter disenchantment at the failure of Congress to pass Biden’s economic and social reforms.

Mr Robinson added: “What we’ve seen in Virginia was black people didn’t go vote for Republicans. They just stayed at home. It was a protest vote.”

Mr Biden’s campaign for the Democratic nomination was saved by black voters in South Carolina after an appeal from James Clyburn, a senior black congressman. On the eve of the state primary, Mr Biden told black voters: “Too often your loyalty, your commitment, your support for this party has been taken for granted. I give you my word as a Biden that I never, ever, ever will.”

However, the failure to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act – both of which were voted down in the Senate – has led to disillusionment. “I’m perplexed. At some points, I’m angry,” said George Hart, 73, a professor at Benedict College, a historically black institution in Columbia, South Carolina. “He let so much happen from the time he became president to the time that he actually introduced the measure (voting reform), it was lost.”

Some black voters are willing to give Mr Biden credit for trying and accuse Republicans of stonewalling, suggesting the political blame game will be an important factor in where votes go in November, or if some vote at all.

Margaret Sumpter, a rural community advocate from Hopkins, South Carolina, blamed the impasse on voting rights on congressional gridlock. “I think that he (Mr Biden) could push a little harder with Republicans like Mitt Romney and some of the other folks to help him to get this passed,” she said.

The news came as Mr Biden was forced to apologise yesterday to Peter Doocy, a Fox News reporter, to assure him he meant “nothing personal” in publicly calling him a “stupid son of a bitch”.

The Times