Until recently President Donald Trump’s approval ratings among black voters were in the low double digits. In July and August, for example, Rasmussen Reports’ approval numbers for the president were in the mid-20s. A recent Economist/YouGov poll had the number at 16 percent among blacks, while a MorningConsult/Politico poll reported 18 percent and Gallup reporting 21 percent support for the president among blacks.
But as the impeachment hearings droned on and on something happened. Last Friday, Rasmussen reported that Trump’s approval numbers had jumped to 34 percent. This was replicated in a poll conducted by Emerson College last week, which reported a 34.5-percent approval rating among blacks. A previous poll by Emerson in October showed black approval of the president at 17.8 percent.
Spencer Kimball, the professor at Emerson College who oversees the poll, said that the sudden jump “could be attributed to variance within the subsets … and be an anomaly. Or it could be the start of a trend. I have noticed [Trump’s] approval with minority voters slightly higher than his 2016 vote totals and [I] think he might do better with this vote that he did in 2016.”
And then along came the results from NPR/Marist taken from November 11 through 15: Non-white voter approval of the president is at 33 percent.
This, according to Peter Kirsanow of National Review, is cause for serious heartburn among Democrats: “What concerns progressives is that, despite their relentless rhetorical assault, Trump’s approval ratings among black voters appear to range between 18-34 percent. Fourteen months from the next presidential election, those approval numbers are cause not just for Democratic concern, but apoplexy.”
In the last eight presidential elections, blacks have overwhelmingly supported the Democrat Party’s candidate. Obama received 95 percent support from black voters in both of his elections, while Hillary Clinton received 89 percent in her failed run against Donald Trump. But if his approval numbers hold true through Election Day next November, Trump should carry the day. Said Kirsanow, “If Trump’s black vote totals are even half of the lower percentage in 2020, he’d get four more years in office.”
Frank Newport, a senior scientist for Gallup, said that there is a high correlation between approval ratings and voter behavior: “Approval ratings for an incumbent president have a significant relationship to actual election outcomes … [for instance] the last Republican president before Trump, George W. Bush, had a 14% approval rating among blacks in 2004 as he was seeking reelection. Bush received 11% of the black vote that November.”
If Kirsanow is right — if Trump can translate just half of his present approval ratings among blacks into votes next November — then these will be more than enough to give him a runaway win for another four years.
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An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American, writing primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
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