Good morning. No Republican presidential candidate has received more than 13% of the votes of Black Americans since the civil rights era. In the race against probable nominee Donald Trump, Black voters are again likely to be Democrat president Joe Biden’s most reliable constituency. But in recent months, that support has started to erode.
This week, Joe Biden has tried to do something about it, with a visit to the Black church in South Carolina where a white supremacist killed nine people in 2015. He linked Trump’s 2020 election denialism to the Confederate rebellion over slavery that prompted the civil war, and told his audience: “Once again, there are some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie.”
But even among his supporters, there are many who fear that Biden’s campaign is not giving Black voters enough to get excited about – and say that if he fails to do so, he could hand Trump the keys to the White House. And last night’s Republican debate between outsiders Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis did little to persuade anyone that Trump will not be Biden’s opponent.
Today’s newsletter, with the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief David Smith, is about why Biden’s support has declined among Black voters, and what he needs to do to fix it. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Post Office Horizon scandal | Hundreds of post office operators are to have their convictions quashed by parliament in an unprecedented move designed to draw a line under one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in British history. Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said that everyone convicted in Scotland as part of the scandal would likewise be cleared.
Israel-Gaza war | A legal hearing into the war in Gaza opens in The Hague on Thursday as the international court of justice (ICJ) hears arguments alleging that Israel is committing genocide. Read Julian Borger’s analysis.
UK economy | The Bank of England may be forced to bring forward the date of its first interest rate cut after three leading forecasters issued a surprise update suggesting the inflation rate will halve to 2% by April. The forecasters attributed their predictions to a slump in energy prices and the cost of oil on international wholesale markets.
HS2 | The estimated cost of the HS2 line from London to Birmingham has ballooned to as much as £66bn due to inflation, the scheme’s executive chair has told MPs. That is up to £10bn more than the existing estimate, which is quoted in 2019 prices.
Land rights | The right to wild camp on Dartmoor could be under threat again after the supreme court granted permission for a wealthy landowner to pursue a ban in court. Hedge funder Alexander Darwall prompted a large protest movement after he banned wild camping on his land.
In depth: ‘As always, the election’s going to come down to a handful of votes’
The serious concerns for the Biden campaign began with a New York Times poll in November, which found that 22% of Black voters in six battleground states planned to back Trump in 2024. Other polls brought similarly ominous news: 20% of Black voters nationally backing Trump in an NBC News poll, 23% according to CNN, and just 63% backing Biden according to GenForward/University of Chicago.
Those are still big majorities for Biden, and white voters are far more likely to support Trump. But in a race that will be decided at the margins, it is a significant shift. In 2020, 92% of Black voters supported Biden for president, according to a study by Pew Research Center. Biden has also seen a sharp decline among Latino voters, with 34% supporting him now compared with 65% in 2020.
“It is a relatively small number of people, but it’s a crucial part of the Democratic coalition,” David Smith said. “Presidential elections are so absurdly close, and last time Biden won by 7m in the popular vote, but 40,000 votes in the three states that put him over the top in the electoral college. He thanked Black voters in his victory speech in 2020, which was a sign of how important they were to his victory.”
In that speech, Biden said: “You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours.” But not everyone is persuaded that he has made good on that bargain.
***
Why some Black voters are turning away from Biden
When David visited the battleground state of Georgia, where African Americans were crucial to Biden’s narrow 2020 success, he heard from Black voters who feel that Biden has fallen short on a range of campaign promises, from tepid action on voting rights and police reform to failing to decriminalise marijuana possession, an offence for which Black people are far more likely to be arrested.
“No community is a monolith,” David said. “The specific issues naturally depend on who you talk to, and they vary by age, geography, class. Many would cite things not specific to the Black community – a sense of economic malaise, even though the economy does appear very healthy. A lot of people mentioned student loan forgiveness. And then there are the issues that are more specific, like Biden’s promise to deliver racial justice.”
“There’s a lot of broken promises, a lot of a lack of integrity,” philosophy student Dejaun Wright told him. “A lot of the things that he promised he’s offered either with a caveat or he just hasn’t offered at all. It’s a slap in the face.”
There is also a suggestion that some Black voters are weary of being taken for granted by the Democrats and feel they should have more to show for decades of consistent support. Pete Giangreco, a Democratic strategist, told Politico in November that he heard “less about Trump” and more “an attitude … that, ‘I’ve been voting Democratic for 50 years, my community has been voting Democratic for 50, 60 years, and we don’t have much to show for it.’”
***
Why men and younger voters are the biggest problem for Biden
The drop in Biden’s support is concentrated among Black men and younger voters – a pattern repeated across different ethnic groups. Black voters under 50 were twice as likely to vote Republican in the 2022 midterms than their older peers, Reuters reported, while the New York Times found that 27% of Black men supported Trump against 17% of Black women.
Younger Black voters are much more likely than average to support a ceasefire in Gaza or say that the US should not be involved in the conflict there at all. “Some of these voters aren’t going to turn to Trump,” David said. “But a third party candidate like Cornel West, who is being very clear in a call for a ceasefire, may look attractive to them.”
Cliff Albright, a co-founder and executive director of the Black Lives Matter Fund, told David that even if Biden went further on cancelling student debt, new gun legislation, and climate change – three key issues for young Black voters – “many of these folks that right now are furious about what’s going on in Gaza, none of that would change their minds”.
Celinda Lake, a pollster who recently ran a round of focus groups, told Politico that she heard from Black voters who feel that their communities are missing out because of the spending on foreign wars. In Detroit, a woman told her that while Ukraine got billions, “we’re in Detroit, and we get nothing”.
Among some Black men, a sense that Biden has not made good on his promises has sat alongside a perception that Trump’s racist language matters less than his promise of greater economic opportunities.
Trump is leaning into that theme. Jason Miller, a campaign senior adviser, wrote on X/Twitter this week that Biden “has done more damage to the African American community than any president in modern history … everybody knows we were better off with President Trump”.
***
What Biden is doing about it
Biden’s speech at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, this week was seen as a direct attempt to persuade Black voters that they are better off with him, David said. “But there was also a sense that he needed to be scrappy, and hit Trump – to energise Democrats who want to see a fighter on the big picture, and to show some genuine passion.”
The most striking parts of his speech – which was interrupted by protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza - were those that drew a link from the South’s support of slavery during the civil war and the Trump campaign. The latter was described as “the old ghost in new garments”. He also made pointed references to the “poison” that devastated the church’s community nine years ago: “What is that poison?” he asked. “White supremacy. Throughout our history, it’s ripped this nation apart. This has no place in America – not today, tomorrow or ever.”
At the same time, the Biden campaign is said to recognise that a central goal has to be to tell Black voters a positive story about its policy record – and Biden pointed to the fact that he had appointed the first Black female supreme court justice, noted record-low levels of Black unemployment, and celebrated legislation that has lowered the cost of prescription drugs.
There are plenty of Democratic strategists who chafe at the idea that Biden has failed Black voters.
Terence Woodbury, a Democratic pollster, told ABC News that “when I sit in focus groups with young Black voters and ask what [Democrats have] done to make their lives better, they’re hard pressed to come up with an answer, despite this administration delivering on much of the Black agenda. That’s the communication challenge that we have a year to overcome.”
“Ordinary voters are mostly not tuning in yet – they are busy living their lives and worrying about their jobs and what’s for dinner,” David said. “It’s certainly true that there is a lot of time, and as we get nearer election day, they may be reminded that Trump is a demagogue and they don’t want that. But it is, as always, going to come down to a handful of voters in swing states.”
What else we’ve been reading
Imagine a place where renting your home is a secure and affordable housing solution. That place exists, and it’s called Vienna. Philip Oltermann dives deep on social housing in the Austrian capital, where more than a quarter of the city’s population are social tenants. Matthew Pearce, newsletters team
Chris McGreal writes about the evidence that journalists in Gaza are being deliberately killed by Israel – “murdered, in other words”. His piece makes the troubling observation that if it was American or European reporters dying, the outrage would surely be inescapable. Archie
Are smartphones bad for us? Jury’s out. Madeleine Aggeler spoke to five experts with different viewpoints. Matthew
The novelist Johannes Lichtman writes a very weird and entertaining piece for the Paris Review about his experience speaking to the CIA’s creative writing group, which does, in fact, exist. None of them are writing spy novels. Archie
After his sister had a life-threatening car accident, Tom Backhouse decided to raise money for the air ambulance service that saved her life. Walking 750 miles through the UK’s national parks, he discovered more than a new hobby. Matthew
Sport
Football | Liverpool staged a second-half fightback and scored twice in a three-minute span to beat Fulham 2-1 in the first leg of the English League Cup semi-finals on Wednesday.
Cricket | Yorkshire’s board has controversially agreed to accept an offer for the club from Colin Graves. The former chairman, who presided over a period for which the club was fined for failing to address systematic racism, previously dismissed the allegations as “banter” and is expected to issue a full apology.
Football | Tottenham have fought off competition from Bayern Munich to secure the £26m signing of central defender Radu Dragusin. The 21-year-old Romanian flew to London for his medical yesterday, with full-back Djed Spence going the other way on loan to Genoa.
The front pages
Justice is the theme across front pages this morning. “Hundreds of Post Office victims to get convictions overturned”, says our Guardian lead headline. That’s after “Sunak promises law ‘within weeks’ to overturn Post Office convictions”, explains the Financial Times. The Metro calls it “Justice by special delivery”; the Times probably wishes it thought of that, but manages “Deliverance for postmasters”. “Justice! Post Office victims will be cleared” – that’s the Daily Express. Other papers say it isn’t over. “£75,000 deal sparks new battle with Post Office victims” is the Daily Mail’s top story while the i has “Pressure grows to punish Post Office scandal firm, as victims will be cleared”. The Daily Telegraph heaps further disgrace on those who were in charge: “Post Office handed out bonuses for convictions”. The Daily Mirror gets the verdict from the “hero” of the campaign: “Mr Bates: it’s not enough”.
Today in Focus
A new law to exonerate Post Office victims
After a primetime TV drama moved the Post Office Horizon scandal up the political agenda, Rishi Sunak has acted to push through a law that would quash the convictions of hundreds of wrongly accused employees. Pippa Crerar reports
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
A primary school in northern India has a new student, and she’s a 92-year-old great-grandmother. After the woman, known as Amma (pictured above), enrolled at the school, many young girls and married women in the area have been motivated to sign up too. Amma has become a source of inspiration for women across the wider region of Uttar Pradesh, where about 30% of women are illiterate. “I went to the school because I like to study and I studied a lot under the guidance of the headteacher,” said Amma. “She has taught me a lot of things. I can do the counting and read, too.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
