Black voter turnout in two key southern battleground states is lagging behind 2020 levels, in what could be a concerning trend for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Black voters made up 25% of the Georgia electorate and 18% of the North Carolina electorate in early voting as of Wednesday, marking a significant decline from 2020 when they accounted for 29% and 19% of the electorate, respectively. The decline in black turnout poses a serious threat to Harris’ chances in the southern battlegrounds, with Democratic political operatives noting that if the party is unable to reverse the trend come Election Day Harris could face a difficult path to victory in the states.
“This feels like a canary in the coal mine,” Michael Bitzer, politics and history professor at Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina, told Axios in reference to the Tar Heel state’s lag in black turnout.
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However, other trends in the southern battlegrounds look promising for Harris, including an increase in early voting in North Carolina among suburban voters. Democrats have argued support among suburban voters will be crucial to the Vice President’s chances in the state, with Harris receiving 51% support from the constituency compared to Biden receiving 39% support in 2020.
Moreover, prominent pollster Nate Silver has argued early voting isn’t a reliable predictor of election results, noting that the early vote mispredicted the outcome of the 2016 presidential election by 14 percentage points.
“Imagine if a poll was off by 14 points: no one would ever listen to it again!” Silver wrote. “And yet we get the same frankly amateurish analysis of the early vote in every election.”
Harris has struggled to win the support of black voters, with a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Oct. 12 showing 78% of the cleavage group supported Harris, well below the 90% of black voters who supported Biden in 2020. Democrats have launched a variety of efforts to reverse the trend, including targeted advertising campaigns and launching an “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” which proposes to give one million “fully forgivable” $20,000 loans to black entrepreneurs.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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