AP Photo/Susan Walsh
- An a episode of NYT's "The Run-Up," Black voters discussed Biden, Trump, and the Democratic Party.
- Several Black voters expressed varying degrees of disappointment with the administration.
- One Black voter told The Times he perceives Democrats as empowering Black women over Black men.
In 2020, Black voters were the bedrock of President Joe Biden's electoral coalition, with the pivotal bloc helping him win hard-fought swing states like Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania — while also overwhelmingly backing Democratic congressional candidates across the country.
But the 2024 presidential election, which could feature a rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, is shaping up to be another story, as enthusiasm for Biden among Black voters has cooled since the 2020 election.
Biden's challenges are illustrated in a revealing new episode of the New York Times podcast "The Run-Up," where reporter and host Astead W. Herndon convened a broad group of Black voters — including some family members — to his childhood home to discuss the upcoming race and the challenges that Democrats will face next year.
While Black voters are set to once again play a significant role in 2024, Biden will need robust margins among the Black electorate if he is to secure reelection against Trump, who has gained some support among Black voters in several polls taken later this year. A group of New York Times/Siena surveys released in November also showed Biden struggling in the majority of swing states that he'll need to carry next year.
During the conversation with Herndon, several voters described a president whom they strategically backed in 2020 to boot Trump out of the White House, while also warning that the president will have his work cut out for him in courting voters who feel disappointed by Democrats in Congress.
One Black female voter told Herndon that many Black voters got behind now-Vice President Kamala Harris because "she had that pearls-and-gym shoes thing and you saw all women from sororities coming together with their pearls and in their Chucks."
"They were like, 'Oh, we've got someone that looks like us in there,'" she continued. "And they were hoping, like we said with [former President Barack] Obama … they were expecting her to do so much and we've seen nothing. And so now it's like, who speaks for us?"
The voter told Herndon that Harris helped pull Biden over the line in 2020, but said that some voters were now more indifferent to the Democratic ticket.
"I think people were thinking that she would be it and that's why we voted. And so now that we don't have what we expected, it's kind of like, okay, well there goes that," she added.
Another Black female voter said some men would move toward Trump next year because they're hesitant to see Harris potentially be elevated to the presidency.
"The thought, even when we deal with Biden and his age, is if something does happen then this is going to be our president," the woman said of Harris. "I think that thought will drive many men, Black or white."
Many voters in group told Herndon that they largely backed Democrats due to a GOP agenda which they find intolerable.
A Black male in the group, who said that the GOP espoused values of entrepreneurship that might attract some Black men to Trump next year, also spoke openly of how he felt that Democrats empowered Black women at the expense of Black men.
"I honestly feel that the Democratic Party has forgot about the Black male," he said.
"As African-American men, sometimes we get left like our needs, our desires, our wants are not always in account," he continued. "We kinda get pushed to the side. I think sometimes that might be something that men are looking at … that our needs are not being taken care of. Like our matters are not being resolved."