Donald Trump Gets Good Sign in Two Critical Swing States: Poll
Former President Donald Trump gives the keynote address at Turning Point Action's "The People's Convention" on June 15, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan. A recent USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows Trump gaining more Black voters than he had in 2020.
While fewer Black voters in two critical swing states plan to vote for President Joe Biden compared to 2020, former President Donald Trump has seen his support among Black voters jump into the double digits surpassing his 2020 influence, a poll published on Sunday shows.
"Biden is still the first or second choice of the vast majority, while most would avoid Trump," a USA Today/Suffolk University phone survey of 500 registered Black voters in the swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania found.
However, the poll conducted between June 9 and 13 and has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points, also shows that the former president is gaining on his previous polling among Black voters in 2020.
Trump, who spent part of his weekend in Detroit, a majority-Black city, is seeking to gain ground among Black voters, who predominantly voted for Biden in the last election. In 2020, according to the Pew Research Center, 92 percent of Black voters nationwide voted for Biden.
The former president received less than 10 percent of Black voter support in Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2020, but according to the new poll, about 15 percent of Black voters in Michigan and 11 percent in Pennsylvania have pledged their support for him.
The poll found that most Black voters who don't want to support Biden, won't turn to Trump on the ballot, but rather are likely to support third-party candidates like Cornel West or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Nearly 15 percent of voters in both states said they prefer the third-party candidates to Biden or Trump, with 14 percent indicating they are undecided.
David Paleologos, director of Suffolk's Political Research Center, who oversaw the poll, said that given Biden's overwhelming majority of support among Black voters, for every voter that turns to Trump, Biden has to earn 13 more Black votes.
"That's why Trump feels a sense of improvement in the Black community," Paleologos said.
Sixty-four percent of Michigan voters said Trump's recent conviction of 34 felony counts following his hush money trial makes them less likely to support his presidency, while 9 percent said the are more likely to, according to the poll. In Pennsylvania, the numbers are 65 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
The former president was found guilty late last month on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to adult-film star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Daniels alleges she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, which he denies. The former president has maintained his innocence, claiming the case was politically motivated against him. His legal team intends to appeal the verdict.
Newsweek has reached out to the Biden and Trump campaign for comment via email on Sunday.
Meanwhile, by a large majority, voters in both states indicated that "inflation/economy" is the most important issue to them.
Michigan and Pennsylvania are always highly watched races, as the election is won or lost within small margins. In 2020, Biden won just over 50 percent of the vote in both states. Aggregator polls from FiveThirtyEight show Trump leading Biden in both states with 1.6 percent in Pennsylvania and a much narrower 0.6 percent in Michigan, as of Sunday morning.
In the national election, FiveThirtyEight has Trump leading Biden by 1.1 percent, as of Sunday morning. The candidates are set for the first presidential debate of the cycle on June 27, with a second slated for September.
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