These 'shocking gains by Trump at Biden’s expense' may not be enough: columnist

31 March 2024

In a Sunday, March 31 article published by The Intelligencer, political columnist Ed Kilgore points to the upward trend of Black and Latino voters' support for a second Donald Trump term — but argues "the shocking gains" still may not be enough to work in the MAGA hopeful's favor.

The political columnist writes, The reported young voter trend away from Biden is probably more understandable given how this group has been impacted by inflation-related reductions in real wages, high interest rates, unaffordable housing costs, and the failure to forgive student loans (though that was the Court’s doing, not Biden’s).

However, Kilgore notes, "among non-white voters, the polls keep showing shocking gains by Trump at Biden’s expense, as Ron Brownstein observes at CNN."

Kilgore writes:

There has been some talk about Trump’s gains among Black voters in the polls being attributable to a big movement among particular subgroups, particularly young Black men. But as Abramowitz notes from the authoritative American National Election Studies data, there were no major differences in the Biden-Trump numbers last time they met at the polls. In 2020, Biden won 93 percent of Black men along with 95 percent of Black women — and won 94 percent of non-college-educated Black voters along with 93 percent of their college-educated counterparts.

Still, he notes, "If, as Republicans hope, non-white voters (including Asian Americans, a smaller but growing group that is often not polled at all) turn out to be the crucial swing vote in 2024, it’s far from clear they will tilt toward the candidate whose vision of a restored American Greatness is so consistently exciting to white supremacists."

Furthermore, Kilgore adds that Brownstein suggests, "whatever level of support Trump has among Black or Latino voters could be driven down with some targeted messaging from the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party."

When it comes to the question of whether Latino voters could help Trump secure a win, Kilgore writes:

Even as polls show Trump posting unprecedented Republican numbers among Hispanics, he is promising the largest deportation drive of undocumented migrants in American history, including the creation of detention camps and the use of the National Guard to participate in mass round ups; military action against Mexico, including a naval blockade, to combat drug cartels; the end of birthright citizenship; and the possible reinstitution of his policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border.

Similarly, what could also deter Black voters away from Trump, Kilgore notes, is:

Even as Trump is posting historic numbers among Blacks, he has proposed, as a condition of receiving federal funds, to prohibit school districts from discussing 'critical race theory' in classrooms, and to require local police departments to implement the 'stop and frisk' tactics that civil rights leaders say unfairly target young Black men.

Kilgores's full op-ed can be read here.

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