President Biden has been outperforming among nonwhite voters in the DailyExpertNews/Siena College national polls for the past year, keeping the race close in a hypothetical rematch against Donald J. Trump.
On average, Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump by only 53 percent to 28 percent among registered non-white voters in a compilation of Times/Siena polls from 2022 and 2023, which included more than 1,500 non-white respondents.
The results represent a marked deterioration in Biden’s support compared to 2020, when he won more than 70 percent of non-white voters. If he fails to revive this support by November next year, it will continue a decade-long trend of declining Democratic strength among voters considered the party’s foundation.
Mr Biden’s lukewarm support among these voters appears to be largely responsible for the close race in early national surveys, which show Mr Biden and Mr Trump nearly tied among registered voters, even though Mr Biden does it just as well among white voters as it did four years ago.
With more than a year left until the election, Biden still has plenty of time to revive his former supporters. The Times/Siena data shows that Biden could approach — but not match — his position in 2020 simply by winning back voters who say they supported him in the last election.
But the possibility that his position will remain below the already low level of the last presidential election cannot be ruled out. The Democrats have lost ground among nonwhite voters in nearly every election over the past decade, even though racially charged battles over everything from a border wall to kneeling during the national anthem had been expected to yield the exact opposite result. Weak support for Mr Biden could easily manifest itself in low voter turnout – as in 2022 – even if many young and less engaged voters end up not voting for Mr Trump.
Many of Biden’s vulnerabilities — such as his age and inflation — could exacerbate the trend, as nonwhite voters tend to be younger and less affluent than white voters. Overall, the president’s approval rating for the past year is just 47 percent among nonwhite voters in Times/Siena polls; his preference score is only 54 percent.
Issues such as abortion and threats to democracy may also contribute less to protecting against additional losses among black and Hispanic voters, who tend to be more conservative than white Biden voters. They can also do less to please voters who have to live paycheck to paycheck: Mr. Biden performs best among non-white voters earning less than $100,000 a year, at least temporarily overcoming the age-old tendency of the Democrats to do better among the lower incomes than the higher incomes erases. income of non-white voters.
The Times/Siena data points to the emergence of a fairly clear education gap among nonwhite voters as Biden loses ground among less affluent nonwhite voters and those without degrees. Overall, he maintains a 61-23 lead among non-white college graduates, compared to just a 49-31 lead among those without a four-year degree.
If the gap persists into the election, it will increase the possibility that the political realignment unleashed by Trump’s conservative populism has spread and eroded the political allegiances of working-class voters, of all races, who have embraced Democrats. attracted to the Democrats. material interests in an earlier political era.
Biden’s weakness among nonwhite voters is broad and encompasses virtually every demographic and racial group, including a 72-11 lead among black voters and a 47-35 lead among Hispanic voters. The sample of Asian voters is not large enough to report, although non-white voters who are not black or Hispanic – be they Asian, Native American, multiracial or otherwise – support Mr Biden by just 40-39. In all three cases, Mr Biden’s results are well below his position in the last election.
The findings are echoed in other high-quality national surveys, which show that Biden is doing just as badly (if not slightly worse) among nonwhite voters as the Times/Siena data. Average, Mr. Bide n leads 74-19 among Black voters and 50-40 among Hispanic voters in 12 high-quality national surveys so far this year.
The shift is also reflected in how non-white Times/Siena respondents say they voted in 2020. Overall, nonwhite respondents who cast their vote in the last election reported supporting Mr Biden by a margin of 70 percent to 24 percent, a figure that’s neatly in line. with post-election studies. Nevertheless, Mr. Biden does not approach these numbers in a hypothetical rematch among exactly the same group of respondents.
The survey shows that a modest but significant 5 percent of nonwhite Biden voters now support Mr Trump, including 8 percent of Hispanic voters who say they supported Mr Biden in 2020. Virtually no nonwhite voters who say they supported Mr Trump — only 1 percent — say they will support Mr Biden this time. By comparison, 2020 white Biden and white Trump supporters say they will return to their previous candidate in nearly identical numbers.
In addition to voters switching to Mr Trump, a large number of disgruntled voters who supported Mr Biden in 2020 now say they are indecisive or simply won’t vote this time. As a result, his weakness is concentrated among less engaged voters on the fringes of politics, who have not voted consistently in recent elections and who may decide to stay home next November.
Overall, Biden leads 81-8 among black voters who emerged in 2022, but only 62-14 among those who skipped the midterm. Similarly, he leads 53-33 among Hispanics who voted in the midterm compared to just a 42-37 lead among those who did not vote.
Young people of color, who make up a disproportionate share of non-voters, are an important part of Mr Biden’s challenge. He has a 48-29 lead among non-white registered voters under 45, compared to a 58-28 lead among those over 45. In contrast, there was little difference among non-white voters over or under 45 in their share in support for Mr Biden. in 2020 – a result reflected in the self-reported 2020 voting choice of Times/Siena survey respondents.
The generation gap is most notable among black voters, who have typically offered near-unanimous support to Democrats. That overwhelming support continues among black-registered voters over the age of 45. They support Mr. Biden, 83-8, but Mr. Biden only has a 59-14 lead among the 152 registered black respondents under the age of 45.
The dissatisfaction of younger voters and voters with lower turnout raises the possibility that Biden’s weakness in the polls is mainly reflected in low turnout among black and Hispanic voters, not in the form of a giant shift toward Trump. Something similar could have happened in the last midterm election, when Democrats seemed to maintain usual support among black voters, but the racial voter turnout gap rose to a multi-decade high.
Biden’s lead among nonwhite voters expands to 57-27 among those who voted in 2020 or 2022, compared to 53-28 among all registered nonwhite voters. And his lead among those recent voters could grow further, to 63-29, if undecided and dissenting voters are assigned to the candidate they said they supported in the last presidential election.
A 63-29 lead would be much closer to Biden’s position among non-white voters in the last presidential election, as would his 84-11 lead among black voters and his 55-37 lead among Hispanic voters in that same scenario .
But even after allocating the remaining undecided voters, these numbers could still be the worst for a Democratic leader among black and Hispanic voters since Walter Mondale in 1984.