Eight years later, the polls suggest that he might well return to the White House by faring better among Black and Hispanic voters combined than any Republican presidential nominee since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
How is this possible? It’s a question I get often, and the latest New York Times/Siena College polls of Black and Hispanic voters nationwide represent our best effort at answering it.
Like our other surveys this cycle, the polls find Trump faring unusually well for a Republican among Black and Hispanic voters. Overall, Kamala Harris is ahead, 78% to 15%, among Black voters, and she’s leading 56-37 among Hispanic voters.
Almost any way we can measure it, Trump is running as well or better among Black and Hispanic voters as any Republican in recent memory. In 2020, Joe Biden’s Black support was 92% among major-party voters; his Hispanic support was 63%, according to Times estimates.
The poll offers plenty of insight into Trump’s strengths and Harris’ weaknesses, but it does not offer a simple, definitive answer. This may be unsatisfying, but it should not be surprising. After all, analysts are still debating whether Trump’s strength among white working-class voters is attributable to the economy, racism, ideology, sexism, Hillary Clinton’s liabilities or one of countless other theories. There still isn’t a definitive answer, even with the benefit of the final results and almost a decade of research. The truth is there are many explanations and they’re hard to untangle. Here, I’ll offer five explanations offered by the survey. This list is not comprehensive — not even close. But each one plays a role in the story. Before going on, an important thing to keep in mind: While Trump is doing far better than previous Republicans, he is still far from winning a majority of the Black or Hispanic vote. As a consequence, many of the factors helping Trump apply only to a minority of Black and Hispanic voters. Even so, Democrats have typically won these groups by such wide margins that even modest support by Black or Hispanic voters can lay the groundwork for politically significant gains.
1. They don’t mind the dog whistles.
To liberals, Trump’s views on race, crime and immigration are little more than racist dog whistles.
Many Black and Hispanic voters feel similarly, but a surprising number hear those dog whistles and like what they’re hearing.
— Around 40% of Black voters and 43% of Hispanic voters say they support building a wall along the southern border. Similarly, 45% of Hispanic voters and 41% of Black voters say they support deporting immigrants living in the country illegally.
— Half of Hispanic voters and nearly half — 47% — of Black voters say that crime in big cities is a major problem that’s gotten out of control. That’s essentially the same as the share of white voters (50%) who say the same.
The support for Trump’s views extends beyond issues related to race and immigration. A majority of Black and Hispanic voters seem to sympathize with his “America First” foreign policy, saying that America ought to pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems at home. Previous Times/Siena surveys have found that a substantial share of Black and Hispanic voters agree with Trump on trade as well.
Or put differently: There’s a lot about Trump’s core populist, conservative message that resonates with a sizable chunk of Black and Hispanic voters.
2. They’re not offended; they might even be entertained.
Of course, Trump hasn’t just used dog whistles in his campaigns. Sometimes, he’s used a bullhorn.
During his time in national politics, he has offended millions of Black and Hispanic voters, including by recently saying that Haitian refugees eat cats and dogs and that immigrants in the country without legal permission are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
But a sizable minority of Black and Hispanic voters aren’t necessarily so offended.
Overall, 20% of Black voters say that those offended by Trump take him too seriously, while 78% agree people have good reason to be offended.
Similarly, 40% of Hispanic voters say people offended by Trump take his words too seriously, while 55% say there’s good reason to be offended. And importantly, only about one-third of Hispanic voters say Trump is talking about them when he’s talking about problems with immigration.
Why aren’t more Black and Hispanic voters offended by Trump? One possible factor: He hasn’t necessarily offended them so much recently.
While most voters have been offended by Trump at some point, a substantial 53% of Hispanics and 35% of Black voters said they hadn’t found anything he has said recently to be offensive. Those tallies are down a bit from earlier in the year — perhaps the remarks about Haitian refugees are a factor — but I’d guess more voters would have said they had been offended recently if we had asked the same question in the heart of the 2016 campaign.
Another factor: A sizable number of Black and Hispanic voters appear to be entertained by Trump.
In this survey, we asked voters whether they thought Harris or Trump was more “fun” — a question that could potentially capture everything from Harris’ claim to “joy” to Trump’s “locker-room talk.”
Overall, voters said Harris was more “fun” than Trump — she even led on “fun” among white voters, even though Trump led among white voters in the poll.
But among Black and Hispanic voters, the story was a bit more complicated. They do rate Harris as more “fun,” but by a much narrower margin than her lead over Trump in the presidential race. Trump’s relative strength on “fun” comes almost entirely from men; he led on the measure among Hispanic men. Age is a factor, too: Younger voters are far likelier to find Trump “fun” with respect to Harris than voters older than 65.
Put all of this together, and Trump isn’t quite as unpopular as you might guess among Black and Hispanic voters. Overall, 17% of Black voters and 41% of Hispanic voters say they have a favorable view of him.
3. It’s the economy, stupid.
It’s obvious, and yet it still doesn’t get enough attention.
Many people assume that Democrats win Black and Hispanic voters simply because of the party’s commitment to advancing racial equality, but the role of economic self-interest should not be underestimated. Democrats started winning Black and Hispanic voters in the 1930s, not in the 1960s, because Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal helped redefine the Democrats as the party of the working class, not just the party of the former Confederacy.
Just 20% of Hispanic voters and 26% of Black voters say the current economic conditions are good or excellent. More than half of both groups say they have “often” cut back on groceries over the past year because of the cost.
This is important for economically vulnerable voters — especially those who have previously voted for Democrats on the assumption that they represented their economic interests. Overall, the economy was the most-cited issue among Black and Hispanic voters when asked what would most decide their vote this November.
As a celebrity billionaire businessman, Trump has always had an advantage on this issue, whether against Clinton or Biden. Now, Trump is running again at a time when voters are more dissatisfied with the economy than before, and when many look back on Trump’s presidency as a prosperous and peaceful time. Harris has a mere 69-25 lead among Black voters who rate the economy as the most important factor for their vote; Trump leads 61-35 among Hispanic voters who say the economy matters most.
When combined with the rest of Trump’s populist pitch, the poll finds that the Democratic core brand advantage as the party of the working class has eroded. Black and Hispanic voters still see Democrats as the party of the working class, but only by a 76-18 margin in the case of Black voters and a 56-35 advantage among Hispanics. It’s a notable shift from September 2022, when Democrats had a 58-27 lead among Hispanic voters by this measure.
4. The End of Hope and Change
Even beyond the poor state of the economy, there’s something deeper holding Democrats back: a sense that voting for them just won’t make much of a difference.
Of all the questions in the survey, perhaps the single worst one for Democrats was on the question of which party best “keeps its promises.” Just 63% of Black voters and 46% of Hispanic voters said “keeps its promises” describes the Democratic Party better than the Republicans.
Black and Hispanic voters don’t necessarily doubt Democratic intentions, but they are disappointed in the results. Democrats fared poorly on questions like whether the party can “fix the problems facing people like me,” even as they excelled on “understand the problems facing people like me.”
In the presidential race, few seem to be convinced that Harris will make a difference in their lives. Just 50% of Hispanic voters said Harris would do more to help them personally, while 37% said the same for Trump. Among Black voters, 73% said Harris would do more to help them personally, compared with 14% who said the same for Trump.
Why are Democrats doing so poorly on these measures? Much of it, of course, is about the state of the economy today. But for a decade this problem could be heard between the lines — in focus groups and interviews and polls of Black and Hispanic voters — stemming from a perceived failure of Obama’s presidency to bring the kind of change that many hoped it might.
In a way, Democrats are suffering the cost of having held the presidency for 12 of the past 16 difficult years. The period began with high hopes, most of all for Black voters. Today, voters remain deeply dissatisfied with the state of the country and the economy. Great expectations weren’t met.
5. For a new generation, Trump is ‘normal.’
The Times/Siena polls suggest Trump has made his largest gains among young Black and Hispanic voters — especially young Black and Hispanic men.
Overall, he has a 55-38 lead among Hispanic men 45 or younger. Harris leads among Black men younger than 45, but only by 69-27. The results among 18-to-29-year-old Hispanic and Black men are even more striking, though the samples are small.
In contrast, Harris holds far more typical leads for a Democrat among younger women, with a 68-30 edge among Hispanic women under 45 and 87-6 among young Black women.
These young men came of age long after the civil rights movement that cemented nearly unanimous Democratic support among Black voters 60 years ago. The youngest were toddlers during the Obama ’08 campaign. They may not have a vivid memory of Trump’s 2016 campaign. To them, Trump may be “normal” — a fixture of their lives to this point, naturally making it harder to depict him as a norm-defying “threat to democracy.”
While these events forged and cemented Democratic loyalties among their elders, today’s young Black and Hispanic voters have come of age in a different era. There was the political, economic and cultural upheaval of the Trump era and the coronavirus pandemic, including lockdowns and vaccine mandates; the Black Lives Matter movement; and the backlash against “woke” that followed. They experienced rising cost of goods and housing just as they entered their first years of independent living.
The poll offers relatively little evidence about how these events shaped the political views of young Black and Hispanic men. Prior Times/Siena polling has found a sliver of young Black and Hispanic men who appear relatively moderate on traditional economic and cultural issues, but also seem to resent the prevailing “politically correct” or “woke” cultural norms of their generation. It may also be worth noting that young voters were especially likely to say Trump was “fun.”
What’s perhaps most important, however, is that Trump has made his largest gains among voters who were political blank slates. If Trump was going to surge among groups with traditional loyalties to Democrats, it makes sense that it manifested among the younger, less engaged voters who had weak or no previous attachment to the Democratic Party.
This same phenomenon, however, leaves lingering doubts about whether all of Trump’s gains will materialize on Election Day. Young Black and Hispanic men are not the most reliable, high-turnout voters. Indeed, a disproportionate share of Trump’s Black and Hispanic supporters say they will “probably” support Trump, but not “definitely.”
But whatever happens this November, today’s young Black and Hispanic voters will be the regular Black and Hispanic voters of the future. Even if Trump’s support is not fully realized in the final results this November, it may only be a matter of time before Republicans break through.
(This article originally appeared in The New York Times.)
