It wasn’t so long ago that the question asked in the above blog title would have laughingly been brushed off. For over a half century, it has been a given that Black voters are Democrat voters.
But maybe not any more.
While still heavily the party of choice for Black voters, percentages look like they are dropping. Dropping enough so that Democrats should be worrying about it.
How come?
Let’s look at these excerpts from Robert Schmad and Charles Creitz’s article for Fox News, via yahoo.com:
Black voters could play a decisive role in Michigan’s closely watched Senate race this November, raising the stakes for Democrats as signs of softer support among the historically reliable voting bloc threaten to complicate the party’s path to victory.
National surveys suggest that the proportion of Black Americans who believe Democrats represent their interests is slipping.
Additionally, the percentage of Black voters who identify with the Democratic Party fell by 10 percentage points between 2020 and 2025, according to the Pew Research Center.
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s razor-thin win over Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., earlier this month was closer than expected, and Black voters appeared to have a lot to do with it. In jurisdictions with the highest percentage of Black voters, El-Sayed consistently struggled against Stevens.
A collective analysis by The Hill found that, in counties where Black residents account for 15% or more of the population, Stevens outpaced El-Sayed by an average of eight points.
Hmmmmm… What does this tell us?
It tells us that although Democrats will almost certainly continue to get a majority of Black votes, they can no longer second-naturedly assume they will get the same huge majority they are used to…and the difference can be what wins or loses elections.
It also suggests that a key reason may be Black voters’ perception that Democrats are becoming more involved with sucking up to hard leftists/socialists like el-sayed than they are addressing Black people’s issues.
Whatever the reason, though, Black voters have been a major component of Democrats’ success for decades, and they cannot afford to lose significant numbers of them.
Let’s keep an eye on the polls going forward and see if this is just a short term quirk or something more.
