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Don’t Blame Black Voters for Supporting Joe Biden
Prove there’s someone more capable of taking on Trump
For so many black Americans, even after all the mud has been slung, Joe Biden is still the man for the job.
Even after all the allegations of inappropriate touching, even after his flip-flop on the Hyde Amendment, even after he endured a pummeling at the hands of Kamala Harris in the first debate, Biden remains African Americans’ preferred candidate. In fact, the latest Economist/YouGov survey, released this week, finds 33% of black voters citing the former vice president as their 2020 frontrunner. (Elizabeth Warren came in second with 13%.)
It doesn’t take the world’s most sophisticated analysis to figure out why black Americans favor Biden: The stakes in this upcoming election are unfathomably high, and Biden represents our best chance at getting Donald Trump out of the White House.
Polling shows Biden trouncing President Donald Trump in the all-important battleground state of Ohio. A Quinnipiac University poll lists Biden as the only Democratic candidate beating Trump in that state by a margin of 50–42. A breakdown of the numbers is even more eye-catching: According to the same poll, Biden leads Trump among black voters, 84%–8%. With odds like that, how are we going to support someone else?
Remember: Where white people see political terrorism from a power-grabbing Trump and his GOP cult, black folks are facing fears of a return to a Reconstruction-era, Birth of a Nation–like America — a country where we feel neither welcome nor safe. We know the cruelty of this administration: We see the harsh treatment of migrants, and we hear the embrace of white nationalist language; always, we feel unsafe.
We know Biden is not a perfect candidate. He was, as Senator Harris pointed out, adamantly against pro-integration policy. And he was a staunch advocate for the 1994 crime bill. But he’s also a man who acted as a rock for Barack Obama — he of the 97% intraparty approval rating.
For eight history-making years, black voters witnessed Biden play the role of Pee Wee Reese to President Obama’s Jackie Robinson. Biden has reminded voters of his relationship with Obama at every turn, sometimes to the point of excess…
