Black voters in battleground states overwhelmingly say they will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November — even though she will have to strike a deal with some skeptical undecideds to reach President Joe Biden’s margin among black voters in 2020.
Information, new Howard University Public Opinion Polling Initiative In Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, 82% of 963 likely black voters say they will vote for Harris, and 12% say they will. former President Donald Trump. Another 5% are undecided, and 1% plan to choose another candidate.
The findings are consistent with 2020 exit polls in the same battleground states, where 89% of black voters supported Biden and 9% supported Trump. else post-election research Studying the 2020 vote.
While Black swing state voters are largely aligned behind Harris, there are some important differences among subgroups of the Black vote.
“We have 100% black voters in the poll, and that creates opportunities to explore the diverse representation of thought in black communities,” said Public Opinion Initiative co-director Dana Williams, dean of the Graduate School at Howard University.
“It’s important for the range of black voices to be heard and recognized,” Williams said. “I think part of the responsibility of the mainstream media is to reflect the population, and as one of the fastest growing populations of voters, we need to spend more time thinking about what’s on their minds so that legislative agendas, presidential agendas, messaging on all those fronts don’t ignore important voting populations.
Overall, 81% of black women and black men said they would vote for Harris over Trump. Older voters support Harris more strongly, while younger voters are more divided.
While 89% of black voters age 50 and older said they would vote for Harris and only 8% said they planned to vote for Trump, those between the ages of 18 and 49 were split differently: 75% for Harris and 16% for Trump.
The age shift was particularly pronounced among black men.
Among those polled, men younger than 50 support Harris by 50 points (72% to 21%), while among men 50 and older Harris’ lead is 78 points (88% to 10%). Among younger women, the margin for Harris is 65 points (78% to 13%), and among older women it is 84 points (89% to 6%).
(Rounding takes into account differences between reported margins and reported vote shares.)
Meanwhile, Black swing state voters with a college degree favor Harris by 73 points over Trump, and black voters without a college degree favor Harris by 68 points over Trump.
The poll shows that younger and less educated voters are more likely to support Trump.
Just over a quarter (26%) of men under 50 without a college degree said they would vote for Trump, compared with 67% who said they would vote for Harris.
Voters polled said they were motivated to vote for Harris because of his positions, values and character, while Trump’s positions, values and character were among the biggest factors making black voters less likely to vote for him.
In the poll, black voters cited Harris’ character (79%), his position and agenda on abortion and reproductive health (79%), and his values (78%) as factors that made them more likely to vote for him. Harris’ positions and agenda on immigration (19%) and the conflict in Gaza (17%), as well as his work as a prosecutor (15%) were some of the top reasons respondents voted for him.
When it came to Trump, voters said he would have his positions and agenda on the economy (18%), his positions and agenda on immigration (17%), his record on business (16%) and his record as president (16%). they will vote for him more. The top reasons why voters were less likely to support Trump were his character (81%), his position and agenda on abortion and reproductive health (80%), and his values (80%).
Black voters most closely associated Harris with abortion rights and reproductive health policy (28%) and economic policy (26%). Views of Trump were more common, with a 14% majority saying they most closely associate him with border control and immigration policy.
The poll found that 84% of black voters who responded said they were worried that hatred or cruelty against African Americans would increase if Trump won. 45 percent said they have the same concern about increased hatred or cruelty against African Americans if Harris becomes the second black president.
“What the media tells us is important to voters, making candidates respond to what they learn,” Williams said. Unless they learn what black voters think, they will continue to be governed by reporting and polling that doesn’t look deeply into black opinion.
The Howard Initiative on Public Opinion developed and administered a multimodal survey of 963 likely voters who self-identified as African American or black and who reported being registered to vote in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. The survey was conducted from September 4-11 through online text-to-internet surveys and telephone (landline and mobile) interviews. The margin of error for likely voters is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.