by Tamer Mohktar,
Executive Director of All Americans Vote
Beginning in the 2020 election cycle, two popular narratives around Black voting patterns began gaining traction. Accurately (and at long last), Black women were being broadly recognized as “the backbone of democracy.” Simultaneously, with much less accuracy, a narrative was created that Black men were disengaging from the franchise of voting, and, more pointedly this year, abandoning a Black woman at the top of the ticket.
Headlines are meant to grab the attention of passers-by, doom scrollers, and deep readers alike. But in the case of Black male voters, the headlines are wrong. The data tells the truth: Black male voters overwhelmingly support a Black woman at the top of the ticket — and the media has a responsibility to reflect that.
In my work as founder of All Americans Vote, which mobilizes Black communities to vote, I see this discrepancy every day. In a recent above-the-fold, front-page New York Times headline, Black voters in a NYT/Siena poll were described as “drifting away” from the Democratic party. This article cited an estimated 12 percentage point drop in Black support of Democrats with Black male support specifically dropping to “only” 70%. The total number of voters surveyed was fewer than 600.
This same article pointed out that 75% of these “drifting” Black voters said, “Ms. Harris would do a better job handling the issues important to them personally,” and that “Black voters are now twice as likely to say Mr. Trump’s policies had hurt them.” Any of these pull quotes are headline worthy — and would tell a more accurate story — but the Times chose to run with “drifting.”
Even if the Times had used more accurate language, a sample of 600 opinions can only go so far. So does a larger data set tell us? For that, we can look at how over 1,000,000 Black citizens actually voted the last time a Black woman was at the top of a ticket. I present to you, Georgia, 2022.
Alongside about a dozen Georgia field operators, All Americans Vote conducted a full examination of the Georgia ‘22 gubernatorial race to examine outreach to Black communities by both major party candidates. Among many other interesting findings, we learned that Black voters overwhelmingly supported the Black female candidate (Stacey Abrams) running for governor. Additionally, 90% of the 387,000+ Black men that cast a ballot that year voted for Abrams, a Black woman. Where were the headlines then?
Just two years prior, during the 2020 cycle, Donald Trump and Republicans were crowing about record inroads they were making with Black men. The truth is, in 2020, 87% of Black men chose Joe Biden over Trump. Again, if you only read the headlines, you’d never know it. But these numbers are anything but small.
All of this begs the question, if the phenomenon of disappearing support for Democrats among Black men wasn’t true when it was first trumpeted in 2020, and if it was further debunked in 2022, why would it be true in 2024?
Have policies failed or shifted away from Black men in this time? The aforementioned Times article claims otherwise.
Are Black men more susceptible to latent sexism/misogyny and therefore unwilling to support a woman at the top of the ticket? The 90% Black male support for Stacy Abrams in 2022 indicates not.
If these negative headlines were actually true, the resulting storyline would be sad and a cause for serious concern. With overwhelming evidence to the contrary, however, this forced narrative might justifiably be reclassified as journalistic malpractice. The picture is nowhere near as bleak as it is being painted to be.
And this year, this matters more than ever. Headlines and repeat narratives can contribute to a bandwagon effect, where readers can either jump on or off based on surface-level sentiments to which they are exposed over and over again. The majority of Black men do support Kamala Harris, and to suggest otherwise — to extract choice tidbits for headlines — can have a damaging effect.
Make no mistake, when it comes to Black voter engagement, we have to exhaust every resource, and never let up until every vote is counted. Honest, hard work aimed at earning every vote of every citizen is a good thing. But when it comes to mobilizing Black men, we shouldn’t have to battle headwinds that don’t actually exist.
All Americans Vote is committed to empowering and educating the Black electorate by providing resources that inspire civic engagement. Through their TUTO program, they’ve driven over 172,000 voter registration checks by offering exclusive access to high-demand entertainment experiences at events like The Roots Picnic, Dreamville Fest, Rolling Loud, and partnerships with Live Nation Urban and The Shade Room.
