Biden’s urgent task: Reengaging Black voters

It’s no exaggeration to say that Black voters put President Joe Biden in the White House. 

After disappointing fourth- and fifth-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Biden’s 2020 presidential bid was nearly moribund. But then a blowout win in South Carolina – where a majority of Democratic primary voters are Black – put him on a fast track to his party’s nomination. Nine months later, he won the general election against former President Donald Trump with 92% of the Black vote. Elected alongside him was the United States’ first Black vice president, Kamala Harris. 

“I stand here today as your president because of you,” Mr. Biden said Monday, speaking at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where a white supremacist killed nine people in 2015. “And I’ve done my best to honor your trust.”

Lately, however, the relationship has been showing some cracks. In a November GenForward survey, fewer than two-thirds of Black voters said they planned to support Mr. Biden in this year’s presidential election, with 20% saying they planned to vote for someone other than him or former President Trump. That followed an October New York Times poll of battleground states that showed Mr. Trump garnering 22% of the Black vote, a massive leap from the 8% he won three years ago – and, if those numbers wind up being even somewhat accurate, a potential political earthquake for Democrats. 

Several factors may be driving this apparent shift. Polls show that many Democrats have concerns about Mr. Biden’s age and ability to serve another term. His candidacy has also been weighed down by the impact of inflation and various foreign conflagrations. The greater worry for Democrats, however, is that the problem may not be specific to Mr. Biden. It may reflect a growing disenchantment among Black voters with the party itself, fueled by a sense that years of partisan loyalty haven’t resulted in tangibly better outcomes.  

“[For] Black voters who showed up in 2020, during the middle of a pandemic and the George Floyd protests, there was this feeling that all we had to do was show up and vote for Joe Biden,” says Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist and former director of Hillary Clinton’s African American paid media in 2016. “You have all of these implied promises that people thought they were getting when they voted against Trump and for the Democrat. And in some parts of the Black voter coalition, they think they are not getting what was promised.”

The president’s trip to South Carolina on Monday was his second major campaign speech of the new year, as he attempts to highlight what he sees as the high stakes of the upcoming presidential election. But it also underscored the political challenge he faces. Mr. Biden’s speech was interrupted at one point by protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza – an issue that has sharply divided the Democratic coalition.

A lack of excitement

Of course, Mr. Biden still retains the vast share of Black voters’ support. And 10 months out from Election Day, it’s hard for polling to accurately simulate the “forced choice” that voters will actually face, says Mr. Payne. In a Biden-Trump rematch, the Democratic strategist contends, there is “no realistic scenario” in which Mr. Trump would ever win 22% of Black voters. 

Still, in a campaign expected to be tight, even a slight shift toward the GOP – or a decision by some Black voters to simply stay home – would matter. In 2016, Mrs. Clinton lost Michigan and Wisconsin, and subsequently the presidency, because turnout among Black voters there wasn’t high enough to counter Mr. Trump’s surging support among the white working class.

That challenge would be compounded if Mr. Trump’s working-class support were now to include more voters of color. Indeed, as education polarization continues to accelerate, one result may be political parties that are less racially polarized, with more college-educated white voters backing Democrats, and Black voters who don’t hold college degrees increasingly finding themselves at home in the GOP.

In Greenville, South Carolina’s most-populated county, residents complain about the rising cost of everything from groceries to housing. Mr. Biden comes across as uninspiring and old, say workers at Mario’s Auto Detailing across the street from the city of Greenville’s Unity Park, but that’s not the most frustrating part. It just doesn’t feel like he’s made things any better, says one man shining a sedan’s rims who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but doesn’t plan to vote this year. 

“Is there a lot of excitement this time around to vote for Biden? The answer is no,” says Pastor Curtis Johnson of Greenville’s Valley Brook Outreach Baptist Church.

He predicts many of his parishioners will vote for Mr. Biden in 2024 if the election is a Biden-Trump rematch, but he says that doesn’t mean there aren’t serious frustrations with the Democratic Party. He lists some of the main concerns: “We need to create a living wage with the out-of-control cost-of-living expenses. Housing. The out-of-control immigration system is impacting a lot of the inner cities. It still feels like the Voting Rights Act isn’t permanent.

“It’s important that we hold whoever gets our vote accountable and articulate the concerns that are still there,” he adds.

Frustration in Greenville

Last fall, this growing frustration with the Democratic Party led Mr. Johnson to try a new tack. He and five other Black pastors from the Greenville area penned a letter endorsing a Republican candidate for City Council over the Democratic incumbent. 

“Those of us who have lived through the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s recall a time when we had a potent, trustworthy and loyal ally in the Democratic Party and much was accomplished then, but things are different now,” they wrote. “Our young people, who do not see us gaining new ground and even losing the ground we had gained, see no true value in blind loyalty. ... They have recognized a truth that we should not ignore: That our community gains nothing from being a reliable tool of one political party.” 

The letter caused an immediate stir, admits Mr. Johnson, and it soon took on “a life of its own.” National media outlets called, asking the men if they planned to vote for former President Trump. He tried to explain that they weren’t repudiating all Democrats, just a local incumbent (who went on to win reelection). But he understands why it generated such an intense reaction. 

“The letter spoke to a more national concern,” says Mr. Johnson. “There are some frustrations across the country with the Democratic platform.” 

To combat this, local Democratic parties need to “step up” and educate voters about what the Biden administration has accomplished, says Stacey Mars, chair of the Greenville County Democratic Black Caucus. They need to remind older Black adults that the Biden administration capped the cost of insulin for seniors on Medicare at $35, and remind young Black voters about the administration’s efforts to block junk fees on sites like Ticketmaster. 

“It’s the messaging,” agrees Kwadjo Campbell, a teacher and Democratic operative in Greenville. “People are wondering, ‘What has Biden done for me?’ Well, spend the money to tell them.” Last month, Mr. Campbell was ousted from his position as the state executive committeeman for the Greenville Democratic Party after he served as a media contact for the Greenville pastors who endorsed the Republican. He says the party should take the entire episode as a wake-up call. 

“Biden is just an easy scapegoat,” he says. “Locally, statewide, and nationally, Democrats have a Black voter problem.” 

Still, Mr. Biden has a history of pulling off improbable wins, note other Democrats. Just look at South Carolina in 2020, when his come-from-behind win made the seemingly impossible happen. 

This year Mr. Biden has tapped South Carolina as the site for the Democrats’ first primary contest, in a bid to give nonwhite voters a greater say in the nominating process.

Black voters will ultimately “come home” to Mr. Biden when faced with the choice between him and Mr. Trump or a third-party candidate, predicts Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who worked for the Biden campaign in 2020. The Biden campaign is employing the same Black voter turnout efforts, through social media and door-knocking, that it used in 2020, she says. But she acknowledges that she is “concerned” by the polling.

“We need African American voters to be very enthusiastic and solidified,” says Ms. Lake.