I have to tell you a little secret. For some reason, I can’t see how Donald Trump, who is a living mess, could be getting more votes from smart people.
Considering this, I am not sure that the former president is becoming more popular among Black voters, a group that mostly votes Democratic Party and voted en masse for President Joe Biden in 2020. Recent polls show that I shouldn’t be so skeptical, and Biden has a lot of work to do to win back the support of Black and Latino voters in many states, including Nevada.
I try not to write articles about polls because they don’t hold up well over time and make you look stupid. That is something I can easily do without adding in figures that were made in a snapshot of time months before Election Day by polling groups that barely hide their political biases before promoting their results.
But for today’s discussion, I’m going to break my general rule and slap my forehead after reading about multiple polls from the past few weeks that showed Trump with at least 20% support among Black voters, with a Fox News poll giving him 26% support. If that number is correct, it’s a lot more than the 8 percent or so he got in 2020.
It’s not a surprise that those numbers have led to some scary news stories. In February, The Guardian reported that “a large number of black and Hispanic voters are leaving the Democratic Party,” which was a true reflection of the results of a Gallup poll that found “Democrats Lose Ground With Black and Hispanic Adults.”
Axios reported in March that “Black and Hispanic men could vote Republican in numbers not seen since President Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected in the 1950s.” It uses a study from the New York Times and Siena College that shows Biden’s falling support among nonwhite voters, even though Trump has said many racist and bigoted things about immigrants and people of color.
As for The Nevada Independent, it has been following this story for weeks and told its readers that the Biden team has taken the low poll numbers seriously by spending $25 million on ads in swing states. Black and Hispanic voters may need more than that to get them excited about voting again. They need to be reminded that President Joe is on their side and is sending energetic people of color into the field to help make the point.
A lot of different things are causing people to be unhappy and unhappy with politics. A lot of things keep Americans up at night, like immigration and inflation, the high cost of health care, the threat to reproductive rights, and how the U.S. should fight other countries’ wars.
But it looks like Nevada Democrats aren’t ignoring the enthusiasm fight. They elected and have kept a state legislature that is mostly made up of women and people of different races. They are starting to tell voters that Biden has their backs, even though there are big problems and direct opposition. Also, it helps to remember how the economy was before he became president.
I’m not the only one who doesn’t believe it. Others with a lot more knowledge about the past of Black voting recently told Dan Balz of the Washington Post that the advantage is not real. A pollster who worked for Barack Obama called the chance of a historic surge “absurd.” He also said, “I’ve been doing large-sample polls of Black voters for four years, and Donald Trump has never moved above 10 percent in any of those four years.”
Nevada’s Democrats are not taking any risks.
As an example, state Sen. Dina Neal and NAACP Las Vegas President Quinton Savwoir shared their findings and data last week during a Zoom meeting that was put together by Sandra Jauregui, who is the state director of Protect Our Care Nevada, and her fellow Assemblywoman Dina Neal. What they said shows us where Nevada’s Democrats are going to be going in the coming weeks.
It’s a walking talking points memo about how the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of the Biden-Harris administration is lowering the prices of health insurance and prescription drugs for all Americans, but especially for groups that have been historically underrepresented. The Protect Our Care report proudly displays seven important steps forward in making health care more affordable. It is a strong reminder of the administration’s “promises made, promises kept” theme.
If you want to learn more about the IRA, the Biden government put out a detailed guidebook on its big plan. Factcheck.org’s number crunchers also have interesting data for the Biden era.
Neal agreed that there was still a lot of work to be done, but she said, “Since Biden was elected, the administration has been actively trying to penetrate the health care system.” It’s not easy, but we need to keep going and help communities see all the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act on the ground level.
The IRA is meant to lower the cost of health care, stop inflation, cut the government deficit, support clean energy, and lower the cost of prescription drugs. In a Congress that is very split, the fact that it exists at all is a small miracle.
Saviour, the head of the NAACP, says the act is “making a measurable impact in our lives.”
He told the crowd, “So much of the political talk these days is nonsense and criticism, and it only makes people lose faith in our systems and institutions and not want to vote.” At a time when fake news and conspiracy ideas are threatening our democracy, we need to praise policies that actually work, like the Inflation Reduction Act. It would take me a lot longer to retire if I had a dollar for every time I heard about a family that couldn’t get or afford health care.
Nevadans are still having a hard time remembering the brave attempt to make their lives better while they are dealing with the smog of politics, high gas prices, and other budget snags.
Let’s check it out. Polling numbers are like a flock of quail: they can get lost quickly as a campaign changes, and I still don’t trust them.
Even taking into account mistakes and real worries, Nevada Democrats still have a lot of work to do to show supporters and doubters that things aren’t so bad under the old guy and would be much worse if they didn’t change things.
