Black voters in America look prepared to vote for Hillary Clinton in this election, with the LA Times reporting 71.4 percent of them support her over Donald Trump as he attempts to making inroads in the minority community based upon his economic message.
It may come as no surprise that blacks overwhelmingly support a Democrat, since that has been a trend for nearly 70 years.
Whereas white voter trends have fluctuated toward one party or the other — depending upon their education level and the signs of the times — African-Americans have been reliably “blue” starting in 1948.
That was when Harry Truman became the first Democrat to appeal to Congress for new civil rights measures: Voter protections, a ban on lynching, and safeguarding civil rights laws already in the books. And when Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson sealed the deal by passing comprehensive Civl Rights legislation, that all but ensured generations of black voters would become Democrats.
Black voters in the 2016 elections
Donald Trump has made some inroads in the black community, positing questions such as “You have voted Democrat,” and “where has it gotten you?” — with some in attendance wondering the same thing. The Washington Post recently interviewed iconoclastic former governor L. Douglas Wilder, who was the nation’s first black governor back in the ’90s.
Lending his thoughts of the black vote in this election, he remained cautious over the Clinton campaign having it locked up. Wilder even went out of his way to throw some praise Trump’s way, saying, “Whether [his outreach] genuine or legitimate or not, at least he’s doing it,” he said. “Either way, I think it’s good.”
Throughout the primaries, African-Americans supported Clinton overwhelmingly giving her 75.9 percent of their vote. Sanders lost the nomination by nearly 4 million votes.
Does Trump have an argument to make?
In a lengthy editorial documenting the progress black Americans have made under Obama’s watch, the Natonal Review quoted House Budget chairman Tom Price in precisely the way Trump must pivot in order to have an appeal with African-Americans.
“After seven years of President Obama’s experiment with bigger government, more spending, and higher taxes, the result is an economy that is underperforming and denying opportunity to millions of Americans,” Price said.
However, that’s not entirely true: Unemployment among blacks slid from 12.7 to 8.8 percent from beginning to the end of Obama’s tenure as president. But wages in the African-American community have stagnated around $35,900 annually, and participation in the labor force lags behind Whites.
Trump’s divisive rhetoric aside, he could promise economic opportunity and tout his record as a businessman. Although, Obama has said he would take it personally if the 76 percent of black voters who identify as Democrat show up and cast their ballot for anyone other than Clinton — and the Democratic nominee has said unequivocally, that Black Lives Matter.