A lot of conservatives think in terms of flipping demographics, instead of making inroads. And that’s a fallacy.
You’re not going to suddenly reverse a pattern that’s been in place for generations, when it comes to black, Jewish, Latino, Asian voters. But you can make inroads and eat away at the Democrat base.
And President Trump is doing just that.
Trump has also gained real ground among nonwhite voters. To be clear, he still trails Biden considerably with these groups, but in UCLA Nationscape’s polling over the past month, he was down by 39 points with these voters, a double-digit improvement from his 53-point deficit in 2016.
While older Black voters look as if they’ll vote for Biden by margins similar to Clinton’s in 2016, Trump’s support among young Black voters (18 to 44) has jumped from around 10 percent in 2016 to 21 percent in UCLA Nationscape’s polling.
Young black voters are probably the least likely to vote, but young voters are also the most persuadable voters. And this is a demographic that Democrats have considered as safe as it gets. These numbers may not be freaking them out electorally, but they are freaking them out culturally.
Especially since the whole point of the Black Lives Matter movement was to mobilize young black voters.
Notably, young Black voters don’t seem to feel as negatively about Trump as older Black Americans do. For instance, an early-July African American Research Collaborative poll of battleground states found that 35 percent of 18-to-29-year-old Black adults agreed that although they didn’t always like Trump’s policies, they liked his strong demeanor and defiance of the establishment.
But the Democrats picked a puppet candidate meant to appeal to older white voters and make them feel safe. That part’s working, but Kamala Harris isn’t helping Biden with black voters, as yours truly and everyone else predicted.
It’s a similar story with younger Hispanic Americans, a group where Trump has also made gains. According to UCLA Nationscape’s polling, Trump is attracting 35 percent of Hispanic voters under age 45, up from the 22 percent who backed him four years ago in the CCES data.
This ought to also conclusively bury the 2012 election autopsy that Never Trumpers cling to.
President Trump has successfully made the GOP’s support more diverse than the usual GOP slate could have ever done.
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