The question really isn’t if Joe Biden will win the black vote. There’s little doubt that he will, once Election Day rolls around. The question is, will he win enough of the black vote in order to win the general election?

THAT is an open question. However, Democrats are absolutely indignant that the question is even being asked. Take Jim Clyburn, who essentially played kingmaker during the 2020 Democrat primary season, and handed South Carolina to Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders. Clyburn is not buying the idea that black voters are going to suddenly swing to Donald Trump.

Clyburn scoffed at questions surrounding Biden’s polling during an interview on the Playbook Deep Dive podcast that aired Friday. In particular, host Ryan Lizza pointed to a Wall Street Journal poll from April found 30% of Black voters were planning to probably or definitely vote for Trump over Biden.

“Something is amiss with the polling,” Clyburn said. “Anybody who believes that Donald Trump will get 30% of the Black male vote or 12% of the Black female vote — I got a bridge down there on Johns Island I’ll sell you.”

As an example, Clyburn pointed to Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) 2020 campaign, which polling did not project would be successful but was. Clyburn also cited Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-GA) bad showing in the polls before winning his seat. When Lizza asked Clyburn if he had worries about the campaign not reaching black voters, the congressman suggested the real enemy is misinformation.

“I’m going to tell you what concerns me,” Clyburn said. “What concerns me is the disinformation and misinformation that’s being peddled out here. What really concerns me is the fact that, for some strange reason, the media are more concerned with trying to balance stories rather than report the facts. That bothers me to no end.”

A 30% approval rating from black voters would be a massive swing from the 2020 election, in which Biden won 92% of the black vote. In 2020, black voters made up 13.5% of all eligible voters. According to the Pew Research Center, they are expected to make up 14% in 2024.

What Clyburn is failing to recognize is that with every outreach effort that Donald Trump makes into the black community, the support for Joe Biden gets softer. It doesn’t mean that come Election Day, the voting bloc still won’t be voting as a majority for Biden. But there is simply no voter enthusiasm for Biden. The best the Democrats can do is turn out their base to oppose Donald Trump, because Joe Biden, the walking corpse, inspires and excites exactly zero people. And if Donald Trump is seen as making inroads into the black community, voter enthusiasm could drop even more – possibly to the point that some voters won’t bother to show up.

After all, who is excited to vote for THIS?

Biden freezes before Obama grabs his arm and leads him off stage. Yikes! 😳 pic.twitter.com/nCgAGitoQ6

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 16, 2024

Yes, Barack Obama to the rescue again. Obama continues to be personally popular with Democrats, as a newly-released USA Today/Suffolk University poll of black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania affirms.

Biden was viewed favorably by 61% to 31% in Michigan and 59% to 33% in Pennsylvania. While a net positive, it’s an anemic showing for a candidate among a part of the electorate that for decades has overwhelmingly supported his party.

To compare, former president Barack Obama, the nation’s only Black president, had favorable ratings of 88% to 9% in Michigan and 84% to 11% in Pennsylvania.

And here we get back to the problem – Obama, who is NOT running for president, is more popular than Biden OR Kamala Harris. That’s not a ringing endorsement – and hilariously, Kamala Harris runs WELL behind Obama as well.

🇺🇲 2024 GE: [Among Black voters]

Pennsylvania
🟦 Biden: 56%
🟥 Trump: 11%
🟨 West: 8%
🟨 RFK Jr: 7%
🟩 Stein: 1%
⬜ Undecided: 13%
—
Michigan
🟦 Biden: 55%
🟥 Trump: 15%
🟨 West: 8%
🟨 RFK Jr: 6%
🟩 Stein: 1%
⬜ Undecided: 15%
—
76% of those surveyed in each state said they…

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) June 16, 2024

Fav/unfav (Pennsylvania)

• B. Obama: 84-11 (+73)
• Biden: 59-33 (+26)
• Harris: 55-30 (+25)
• Trump: 15-79 (-74)
—
Fav/unfav (Michigan)

• B. Obama: 88-9 (+79)
• Biden: 61-31 (+30)
• Harris: 60-24 (+36)
• Trump: 23-74 (-51)

Keep in mind, however, that this is a fairly small survey sample (500 voters in the two states, with a margin of error of 4.4 percent). Still, it shows a soft level of support in the black community for Biden and Harris that, if Donald Trump can’t take, he can make even less enthusiastic.

And Trump does that with events like this.

Former President Trump attended a roundtable discussion at a church in Detroit on Saturday afternoon in an effort to reach out to Black voters.

During the discussion, 180 Church Pastor Lorenzo Sewell told Trump that he was “humbled” by the former president’s visit.

“President Obama never came to the ’hood, so-to-speak, right? President Joe Biden, he went to the big NAACP dinner, but he never came to the ’hood. So thank you,” Sewell said, eliciting applause from the audience.

Sewell told “Fox & Friends First” on Friday that he couldn’t remember the last time a president laid out a plan for the Black community until Trump created the Platinum Plan, which included approximately $500 billion for Black businesses and churches.

“Those metrics matter to us. So we’re going to hold him accountable to the Platinum Plan that he produced,” Sewell said.

And at this event, Trump was speaking directly to the concerns of those in the room.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee focused on black voters — emphasizing the migrant crisis while speaking at a policy and awareness roundtable at 180 Church in Detroit’s inner city.

“They’re coming for your jobs. And it’s terrible. … The black community is being hurt most by illegal aliens. They’re coming into your communities and they’re taking your jobs,” Trump told the crowd, which earned him a hefty round of applause.

At the event, Trump launched his “Black Americans for Trump” coalition to rival a similar group the Biden-Harris campaign sunk millions into, which Trump framed as an attempt to win over a block of voters Biden had historically wronged.

Trump claimed President Biden would be a threat to black Americans, citing his role in authoring the 1994 crime bill that ramped up policing and imprisonment.

“He walks around now talking about the black vote — he’s the ‘king of the super predators,’” Trump said.

“He wrote the 1994 crime bill that you all talk about so much, I guess everybody here knows about that, especially if you happen to be black.”

The Detroit crowd warmly welcomed Trump, especially when the ex-president promised to quell the migrant crisis.

Will outreach events like this be enough for Trump to win a majority of the black vote? No, absolutely not. Will it be enough to give Democrats real heartburn? Absolutely yes. If Democrats start to panic over losing the black vote, then that is a huge win for Republicans. And if Donald Trump’s support among the black community increases, even better. If any lesson has been learned by Republicans during the last several election cycles, I hope it has been that they should not simply write off reaching out to an entire community. We all share concerns over unchecked illegal immigration. We all share concerns over rising inflation and the impact it has on our gas and grocery bills. The Biden campaign is spending time trying to convince everyone that the old man is just fine, and the economy isn’t nearly as bad as you think. That’s not a winning strategy, and the more that Donald Trump takes the time to reach out, the weaker Joe Biden looks by comparison.

And not even being led around by Barack Obama is going to be able to save Joe Biden.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click