Democratic allies of President Joe Biden are blaming misinformation for the president’s dwindling support among black voters, according to NOTUS.
Months out from the 2024 election, Biden’s reelection campaign and the White House have made attempts to address the president’s flailing poll numbers among black voters. After black voter turnout increased in the South Carolina Democratic primary, allies of the president told NOTUS black voters need to be more educated on candidates to replicate the results nationwide.
“We needed to educate our voters and create a space for our candidates to come talk about their record,” Christale Spain, Democratic Party chair in South Carolina, informed NOTUS. “That’s really why we launched this historic effort, to fill what I feel is an information gap and not an enthusiasm gap.”
“It was really about people not knowing the information,” she reportedly added.
Amid the 2024 race, the Biden campaign has organized an entire legal advisory team to combat misinformation, disinformation and artificial intelligence, a campaign official informed NOTUS.
Voter turnout in the first Democratic primary on Saturday was roughly 4%, the outlet reported. Black voter turnout increased by 13% and 6,000 new voters were first-time participants in the primary, Spain explained, according to NOTUS. In 2020, voter turnout was reportedly about 13% in the state’s Democratic primary. (RELATED: Biden Wins South Carolina Dem Primary In A Landslide)
In November, 22% of black voters in several swing states said they would choose former President Donald Trump over Biden, according to a November NYT and Siena College poll. A December GenForward poll from the University of Chicago showed that 63% of black Americans said they would vote for the sitting president though 20% of the voting block said they wouldn’t choose either Biden or Trump, Politico reported. Seventeen percent of black voters reportedly said they would choose Trump in the 2024 election.
Biden’s current support among Black voters has plummeted. In 2020, Biden garnered 92% of the black vote, while Trump received 8%, according to the Pew Research Center.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during an event in the East Room of the White House marking Black History Month February 27, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
In an effort to turn support among the key voting bloc around, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off the year with a trip to South Carolina, according to Politico. The president and vice president made trips independently of each other, visiting Mother Emanuel AME Church, one of the oldest black churches in the south, and the Seventh Episcopal District AME Church Women’s Missionary Society, the outlet reported.
The White House reportedly met with prominent black male Democratic leaders in December to discuss the lack of support among the voting bloc, attendees told The New York Times (NYT). During the meeting, attendees reportedly told the White House that the president had snubbed black males since his 2020 campaign.
“I think there’s a lot of disinformation out there,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison informed NOTUS during an interview. “There are a lot of folks who don’t want this president for whatever reason, and I think some foreign and some domestic. They don’t want the record to be straight in terms of what this president has done and accomplished.”