CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod warned Monday that black voters were drifting away from President Joe Biden.
Black voters have visibly withheld their support despite the demographic being a key part of Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. The New York Times (NYT) warned no Democratic candidate has garnered less than 80% of the black vote since the civil rights era, meaning the new trend could spell a disaster for Biden’s re-election campaign.
“I don’t dismiss the issue of young black men, and I think that’s something that the Biden campaign and Democrats need to keep an eye on because I don’t think it’s just a statistical blip. This has been a trend line, and that’s why I think there is an economic track that has to be pursued here as well,” Axelrod said on “CNN This Morning.”
New York Times/Sienna College polls from November found that black voters’ support for Biden has dropped from 92% to 71% since 2020. The polls also found that in six battle-ground states, nearly one-quarter, 22%, of those voters said they would back former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. (RELATED: Al Sharpton Warns Biden Admin They Need To Take Black Voters Leaving Dems Seriously)
Another poll conducted by Fox News in October found Biden leading Trump among black voters 74% to 26%, down from the president’s 92% among the demographic in 2020.
Black voters who identified as “lifelong Democrats” in Chicago recently threatened to vote against Biden and switch political parties due to the migrant crisis that is impacting major cities across the U.S.
“What I say to President Biden and the entire Democratic Party is that you have missed the mark with this and you have lost some very committed voters,” one voter told Fox News in late January.
The president’s overall job performance approval rating among Americans stood at 38% in a February poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.