President Biden is stepping up his outreach to Black voters, desperately trying to reverse the hemorrhaging of support among the Democratic voting bloc that overwhelmingly turned out for him in 2020.
The president in the last few days hosted events marking civil rights milestones, including the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which outlawed segregation in public schools.
He spoke Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, where he framed this year’s election as a civil rights issue.
In his remarks, Mr. Biden introduced himself as a “lifelong member of the NAACP” and told the audience that former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, poses a threat to Black people’s rights.
“Today the resistance comes in other insidious forms. An extreme movement led by my predecessor and his MAGA Republican allies, backed by an extreme Supreme Court, gutted affirmative action in college admissions. My predecessor and his extreme MAGA friends are now going after diversity, equity and inclusion all across America,” Mr. Biden said.
“They want a country for some, not for all,” he said, accusing Republicans of taking away “fundamental freedoms.”
On Sunday, Mr. Biden will deliver the commencement address at Atlanta’s historically Black Morehouse College, which counts civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. among its alumni.
The Biden campaign views the Morehouse speech as the cornerstone of these events because his aim will be to connect with the next generation of Black leaders, a demographic with the deepest decline in support.
The event is already shaky. Student protesters have called on the school to rescind Mr. Biden’s invitation over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. The White House this week dispatched aides to the college to meet with student and faculty leaders to quell potential demonstrations.
“This is a global catastrophe in Gaza, and Joe Biden coming to pander for our votes is political blackface.” Anwar Karim, a Morehouse sophomore, told The Associated Press.
After the Morehouse commencement, Mr. Biden will fly to Detroit, where he’ll speak at an NAACP chapter dinner.
Also this week, Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with leaders of historically Black sororities and fraternities.
In 2020, Mr. Biden enjoyed widespread support from African Americans, capturing 92% of their vote. Recent polls, however, show many Black voters flocking to Mr. Trump.
A New York Times/Siena College survey of battleground states released this week found Mr. Trump winning more than 20% of Black voters in a head-to-head fight with Mr. Biden. If that holds, it would amount to the highest African American vote for a Republican since Richard Nixon’s 30% in 1960.
Although the string of events targeting Black voters is a tacit admission that the president is struggling, NAACP CEO Derrick Johnson dismissed claims of an erosion of support. Speaking with reporters at the White House on Thursday, he predicted Black voters will show up for the president in November.
“Polls have proven themselves to be untruthful the last four election cycles,” he said. “What I do believe is, we are at a crisis of our democracy. We must decide whether we’re going to have a functioning democracy that’s representing all of the citizens, or something less than that.”
Kevin McGary, a civil rights activist and co-founder of Every Black Life Matters, said Mr. Biden is struggling with Black voters because he has taken them for granted.
As Mr. McGary sees it, the carefully scripted events won’t resonate with Black voters as much as reducing crime and inflation.
“The reality is Black communities are faced with inflation every single day — energy inflation, food inflation — and crime that is off the charts every day in major cities,” he said. “Now you see [Mr. Biden] coming into our community because it’s an election year when we’ve been completely taken for granted. It’s condescending, and we are fed up with that.”
Democratic strategist David Dix said pollsters and media are too focused on singling out Black voters. He said Mr. Biden’s erosion of support in the Black community reflects the president’s overall poor polling numbers.
“He’s struggling with a lot of demographics. It’s not an exclusive failing among African American voters,” Mr. Dix said, citing the economy as a key reason for Mr. Biden’s struggles.
Mr. Dix said the president’s latest push should help him with Black voters because it shows an “effort to make and maintain a connection” with the African American community.
But Mr. Dix said the Biden campaign still must do more, including having more diverse voices within his campaign. The Biden campaign has yet to hire a director of African American voting.
Earlier this month, the Biden campaign announced it would spend $14 million on ads in exclusively minority-focused media.
Since the beginning of the year, Mr. Biden has done at least 11 interviews with Black media personalities.
He has used these interviews to highlight his record and lay out the case for why Black voters’ lives would be worse under a Trump presidency.
In a radio interview this week with an Atlanta radio station, Mr. Biden called on Black voters to “remember who Trump is.”
“He falsely accused the Central Park Five. He’s the founder of birtherism, he tried to repeal Obamacare the first time — now he’s promised to do more damage,” he said.
Mr. McGary said the president’s own record on race is problematic. While in the Senate, Mr. Biden wrote the 1994 crime bill, which increased Black imprisonment.
“That bill led to mass incarceration, and there hasn’t been any acknowledgment that it was a failure,” Mr. McGary said.
While running for reelection, Mr. Biden has touted his accomplishments that have benefited Black Americans, including appointing the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. He has also pointed to increases in Black homeownership under his watch as well as efforts to support Black-owned small businesses and historically Black colleges and universities.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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