(Article by Kipp Jones republished from WesternJournal.com)
The results of Rasmussen Reports’ daily presidential approval rating tracking poll found that Trump’s approval among likely black voters went from 25 percent on Monday to 46 percent on Friday.
Trump’s approval rating among this demographic actually decreased to 24 percent on Tuesday. Three days later, it had nearly doubled to 46 percent.
The president’s overall approval rating was at 51 percent on Friday.
https://twitter.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/1319605958037950470
“Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis,” according to Rasmussen.
“The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters is +/- 2.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.”
Considering the historical support for Republicans presidential candidates among black voters, if the results are anywhere close to accurate — and Rasmussen does have a good track record — then Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is in big trouble.
The support of black voters is crucial for Democrats, and without the vast majority that support, Biden’s campaign is sunk.
Last month, Gallup reported Trump’s support is up among black Americans from 2016, although the pollster didn’t find that support anywhere near the 46 percent approval rating figure reported by Rasmussen.
Gallup reported that “aggregated data from polls conducted July 30-Aug. 12 and Aug. 31-Sept. 13 show Trump approval — a rough surrogate for likelihood to vote for Trump — at 11% among Black Americans, with disapproval at 87%.”
For context, the pollster further noted, “The Democratic candidate for president over the five presidential elections since 2000 has averaged 91% of the Black vote, with 8% on average going to the Republican candidate.”
Trump won the 2016 election with an estimated 8 percent of the black vote, so even if Gallup’s aggregate date showing a 3 percentage point increase to 11 percent is accurate, the president has already made large inroads with black voters.
Trump has courted black voters since his first presidential campaign, and has worked hard while in office to go to bat for the black community.
Politico reported that in 2019, the Trump campaign shocked some black Florida residents by advertising in The Westside Gazette, a black-owned Broward County newspaper.
Gazette publisher Bobby Henry told Politico, “I thought it was quite abnormal.
“For [Trump] to reach out to the broader African-American community is what surprised me.”
Under the Trump administration, black unemployment reached historically low levels prior to the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, and the president has proudly touted his actions to provide funding for historically black colleges and universities.
Trump was also successful in signing into law the bipartisan criminal justice reform FIRST STEP Act in 2018, which aims to reduce prison populations and rehabilitate convicted felons.
Trump sparred with Biden over criminal justice during Thursday’s debate in Tennessee.
Trump hit Biden hard for his support of crime legislation in the 1980s and 1990s that critics say disproportionately targeted black Americans.
“You put tens of thousands of mostly young black young men in prison,” Trump told Biden.
Trump also laid into Biden for not working hard enough on the issue of criminal justice reform during his eight years as vice president.
Perhaps Thursday’s debate, and Trump’s record with black Americans, endeared the president to the all-important voting bloc.
If the Rasmussen survey is indeed accurate, Trump’s debate performance proved to a great many black Americans that while Democrats have talked about improving their lives for decades, the president was successful in making his case that he’s been a true ally for the black community.
Just a reminder: As Rasmussen pointed out in December 2016, its “final poll was the closest among all pollsters who correctly picked Hillary Clinton to win the popular vote” in that year’s presidential election
The RealClearPolitics polling average prior to the election showed Clinton up by 3.3 percentage points in the days leading up to the election.
Rasmussen had Clinton up by just 1.7 points, and she eventually won the popular vote by 2.1 points while losing the Electoral College.
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