A vast majority of Black Americans trust Kamala Harris and distrust Donald Trump – 71% compared to 5% – according to the largest-known survey of Black Americans since the Reconstruction era. The survey of 211,219 Black people across all 50 states showed that the presumptive Democratic nominee may have a higher chance of winning over Black voters than the Republican candidate.
At a virtual press conference on Thursday afternoon, the Black-led innovation thinktank Black Futures Lab, revealed findings from its 2023 Black Census, which was conducted with the help of 50 Black-led grassroots organizations and national partners across the country from February 2022 to October 2023. The latest survey garnered seven times the respondents from the first census in 2018, which received 30,000 responses. Two-thirds of the respondents were women, a majority were from the south, and nearly half were from 45 to 64 years old. Black Futures Lab believes that the census results will help inform voter mobilization efforts ahead of presidential and local elections.
“For us to be powerful in politics, we must control the agenda,” said Black Futures Lab’s field director Natishia June at the press conference. “This is why the Black Census is crucial.”
The top three issues that Black Americans are concerned about were low wages at 38%, gun violence at 33% and failing schools at 31%, according to the survey. Economic concerns were top of mind for survey respondents, with 97% reporting that they want college to be made more affordable, 95% want minimum wage increased to $15 an hour and 94% desire an expansion of government aid for those who need it. Government aid, according to survey respondents, could range from helping small businesses to increasing access to affordable housing.
“There’s this narrative in the media, and amongst folks that attack Black people, that Black folks just want handouts – and that’s further from the truth,” said the group’s principal, Kristin Powell. “What Black people want is the support that they’re investing in. If we’re giving tax dollars to this country, we want to get paid back.”
Black Americans trust small businesses more than any institutions, while they trust corporations, elected officials and police the least. “Small businesses being the most trusted makes a lot of sense,” said Powell, “as Black folks are investing more in building their own businesses and want that support to do that.”
When looking at party affiliation, the survey also revealed that 70% of respondents identified as Democratic, while 2% identified as Republican. Of the 23% of people who identify as independent, they still lean Democratic.
“There’s so much rhetoric about the independent voters, even Black independent voters, and that they’re up for grabs by either party. But the data doesn’t support that,” Powell added. “What the data says is that Black voters lean Democrat, and when they don’t feel like they’re delivered for, they then don’t vote at all.”
The data did reveal a voter turnout gap when it came to local elections: although respondents spoke at length about issues in their communities, they voted less in local elections compared to federal ones. “It’s really important that although there’s a presidential race happening right now, that we educate and activate voters around mayor’s races, city council, school boards, state legislature races,” Powell said, “in order to really make the bigger impact on their daily lives.”
The New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that engages Black and brown voters in Georgia, said that it will use the data to support policy positions that offer solutions to the local community’s concerns. The nonprofit was one of the local partner organizations that surveyed people face-to-face by tabling at large community events and at other hotspots.
Organizers plan to return to the areas where they collected the data to share the results with respondents “so that they can see themselves in this type of insight,” said the New Georgia Project’s research director, Ranada Robinson. The New Georgia Project also plans to use the research to show voters the power that they hold in local elections. The secretary of state decides who stays on the voter rolls, for instance, while the agricultural commissioner determines whether neighborhoods have fresh food.
“Research related to undercounted and underrepresented populations has to be designed to account for the skepticism and the lack of trust in systems that are usually not inclusive, but also to acknowledge the joy and hope that sustain our communities,” said Robinson. “Black voters need consistent interest and conversation and seeing the results of their civic engagement to build long-term power systems.”
