Is Biden focusing enough on Black voters? Some activists see worrying signs for midterms
When Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate in nearly three decades to win Georgia, it was due largely to Black women such as Amber Lowe-Woodfork.
The 32-year-old Atlanta minister cast her vote for the president, as did 95% of Black women voters in the Peach State – about 35% of his overall support. Biden won the state by less than half of one percent out of the roughly 4.9 million votes cast.
But asked about the president now, Lowe-Woodfork said she would grade him a C at best. She isn't sure if she'll showed up for him again in 2024 either.
"I don't think that he's done a good job of speaking directly to our issues," Lowe-Woodfork said.
"Especially given the fact when he said during his (victory speech) 'Black people I owe you, you all helped me and I owe you'," she added. "I'm waiting to see when that check is going to be cashed."
Biden didn't help himself with voters such as Lowe-Woodfork this month: With no mention of Black Americans in his State of the Union address, activists, civil rights leaders and voters say the president is in danger of losing a crucial group of voters ahead of midterm elections that will decide control of Congress this fall.
Last April, during his first joint address to Congress, Biden committed his administration to targeting systemic racism, saying his first year in office was a moment for significant change.
Referring to the murder of George Floyd, whose killing by a Minneapolis police officer inspired millions to demand reform, Biden said the country had witnessed “the knee for injustice on the neck of Black Americans.” He called on Congress to enact police accountability reforms by the one-year anniversary of Floyd's death.
“Now is our opportunity to make some real progress,” Biden said.
But this month, when Biden came back for his first State of the Union with little to show on that issue or others, he made no mention of race.
"Biden obviously feels the best way to get his message across — and to not offend anybody — is to not talk about race," said Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter.
Cedric Richmond, a senior advisor to the president, said it is "factually incorrect" for anyone to suggest Biden is turning his back on Black voters.
Richmond, a former congressman, listed off a series of administration actions from criminal justice and diverse judicial appointments to historic funding levels for historically Black colleges and universities, adding the White House has communicated to allies, including members of Congress, about amplifying that message ahead of the 2022 midterms.
"We could give a 30 or 40 minute speech on all the things we've done for the African American community, you just didn't have the time to put it in the (State of the Union)," Richmond told Paste BN. "But we're continuing to do the work. We're getting it done."
Black voters sour on Biden?
For much of the speech Biden urged the American people to see issues such as the cost of aiding Ukraine and the pandemic in less divisive ways.
Polling released immediately after showed Biden did receive a brief bump fueled by Democrats and independent voters.
But a troubling trend that shows he is losing support among his strongest demographic: Black Americans.
An NBC news poll in January found Black support for the president, which had stood at 83% in April, dropped to 64%.
One of the most important 2022 battlegrounds will be Georgia, which Biden won by a roughly 11,800 votes two years ago.
In the Peach State, Democrats will be defending the seat held by Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is one of only three Black senators, while also hoping to seize the governor's mansion.
The New Georgia Project, a voting rights group, provided Paste BN with new polling from a statewide survey of Black voters in January.
When asked about Biden’s overall job performance, Black Georgians voters gave the president a 72% rating, his highest marks by far in the state.
But when asked about how Biden is "doing in addressing the needs of Black people" those numbers drop to 62% and plummet further to 53% among respondents under age 50.
Montu Miller, 46, a high school teacher and hip-hop artist in Athens, said he notices how Black voters don't talk badly about the president as much as they avoid talking about him at all.
"For a lot of Black people he's just there — he ain't too bad but also he ain't that great," he said. "It ain't even like we just like we ran to the polls like, 'Let's go Biden.' We weren't excited about Biden, we just wanted Trump out."
Miller said he didn't vote for president when he showed up to the polls in 2020, citing Biden's support for the 1994 crime bill as a senator. He said to earn his support the president will have to make "tangible results" but that it's shocking how Biden hasn't made a separate speech or series of appearances specifically aimed at Black voters.
"You should be promoting that just like you promote everything else," he said. "I don't understand 'we ran out of time'. I get that Ukraine fell in their lap and they probably had to re-adjust and do some things, but at the same time certain Americans and certain things you have to address."
The New Georgia Project poll, which was conducted with consulting firm Hit Strategies and surveyed more than 1,000 Black voters, found Biden's favorability lagging behind other Democratis in the state.
Among Black Georgians, the president has a 20% unfavorable rating, double Democratis such as gubernatorial contender Stacey Abrams and Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
Part of the split between Biden and other Democrats, the group's pollster said, may be the perceived failures to address voting rights legislation.
In January, when the New Georgia Project poll was conducted, Senate Democrats failed to unite to muscle through their voting rights package that contained protections against new election restrictions such as the ones passed in Georgia last year.
Biden used the term "vote" only three times during his SOTU, briefly calling for Congress to pass federal protections that have already failed to get through.
"If the Democrats want to win again (in 2022), I don't think they should run with Joe," Lowe-Woodfork, the Atlanta-based minister, said.
She said younger Black voters want explicit language in how White House policy prescriptions benefit their community.
"He's not proven himself to be an ally or someone dependable when it comes to Black issues because, again, you went from praising Black people in your (victory) speech to not even mentioning Black people in the State of the Union."
Nsé Ufot, the CEO of the New Georgia Project, said the State of the Union represents a critical error by the White House ahead of the mid-terms and that Black voters are right to take notice.
"If they're thinking about holding on to the majority in the House and the Senate... not doing everything that you can to maintain the energy and the enthusiasm that got you there makes no sense to me at all," Ufot said.
In both the 2020 presidential contest and the 2021 Senate runoff races, Black Georgians fueled record turnout that led to close wins, which advocates say is why the administration can ill-afford even a slight drop in support.
In the New Georgia Project poll, 50% of Black respondents said new election restrictions in the state are one of the top three reasons they might not vote in 2022.
Democrats hold an 11-seat majority in the House and have the tie breaking vote with Vice President Kamala Harris in the evenly 50-50 split Senate.
If Democrats are serious about retaining their razor-thin congressional majorities, Ufot said, party leaders must quit tip-toeing around issues that matter to their most loyal base.
"We are not operating with this sense of urgency, particularly around strengthening and fortifying our election infrastructure to protect them from attacks from domestic bad actors," she said.
Biden can't be judged on 'one speech'
Biden allies within the civil rights orbit admit the disappointment in the Black community, especially in terms of voting rights and police violence.
"We are disappointed — but not deterred or defeated — that our voting rights bills and police reform bills were blocked by the filibuster, but we want President Biden to continue to prioritize them both," said Marc Morial, CEO of the National Urban League.
Like presidential adviser Richmond, Morial said there is much more going on than is often acknowledged.
He pointed out how the American Rescue Plan, for instance, targeted relief to Black communities and businesses and how the bipartisan infrastructure bill has provisions that address historic neglect and racial injustice.
Morial noted how, in recent weeks, the country saw a successful federal prosecution of the Minneapolis police officers who "enabled George Floyd’s murder and the vigilantes who murdered Ahmaud Arbery" as signals of how serious the White House is about racial justice.
“The ambition and achievements of the Biden-Harris administration's agenda with regard to Black America cannot be evaluated on the basis of one speech," Morial said.
But the absence of race from such a significant speech cannot be divorced from the significant legislative losses Biden has suffered in his first year in office.
Last September, a bipartisan group of lawmakers emerged without a deal after months of closed door negotiations on a proposal aimed at holding police more accountable for violence in the line of duty.
In the State of the Union, Biden's brief comments on policing did little to lift those reforms back to the forefront of political debate. He instead invoked the families of two slain New York City police officers followed up by a pointed rebuke of the "defund the police" movement.
Americans should all agree, the president said, the "answer is not to defund the police" but rather to "fund the police with the resources and training they need to protect our communities."
Richmond, the president's senior advisor, echoed this sentiment, telling Paste BN the hike in violent crime nationally has hit the Black community hardest. The president, he said, was speaking to the trauma being experienced in those neighborhoods as well.
"You know who wants police? The Black community," Richmond said. "They want just policing, they want accountable policing, they want transparency when things are done, and all of those things we've been committed to."
Richmond said the administration is continuing to examine the use of executive orders on fronts from voting rights to policing.
But Richmond noted how on the first day Biden took office he signed an executive order to advance equity policies for underserved communities and used his powerful pen last year to end federal contracts with privately operated prisons.
He also mentioned how the president took the lead when the Department of Justice put limitations on the use of chokeholds and 'no-knock' warrants by federal law enforcement.
Quentin James, founder of Collective PAC, which aims to elect more Black people to public office, said funding law enforcement versus crime prevention alternatives remains a thorny question for Democratic candidates and minority voters.
But he said Biden's comments during the State of the Union knelt to the Republican Party's narrative and caved to a false choice for a short-term political gain that will hurt Democrats in the long run.
"What activists are really calling for is a comprehensive look at spending of our tax dollars and to say, 'Listen, we could do a better job,'" James said. "But when you boil that down to 'just fund the police,' I think it really turned a lot of folks off that will need to show up when it comes to the election in November."
Regardless of the legislative wins or losses of the past year, Albright, the voting rights activist, said it is obvious to him the president was avoiding direct appeals to Black votersduring the State of the Union.
He said it became obvious when Biden never touted the historic nature of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court when mentioning the upcoming confirmation hearings.
C-SPAN released a poll this week asking likely voters how closely they are following the upcoming confirmation hearing. LL: Link please?
The survey found Black Americans are more plugged into the process than others, with 46% saying they are "more closely" following Jackson's nomination compared to 26% of whites and 30% of all Americans.
When asked about the importance of diversity on the high court, the C-SPAN poll found it is "very important" to 47% of likely voters but skyrockets to 70% among Democrats; 62% among Black Americans; and among likely voters age 35 or younger.
"For you not to talk about the first Black woman (nominated to SCOTUS), which is something you should be celebrating, he did not acknowledge her as the first," Albright said. "That can't just be something that's accidental."
As a candidate, Biden pledged to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court if a vacancy occurred.
And as recently as Feb. 1, before Brown was announced as the nominee, the president's official Twitter account boasted about the pick being, "someone who will make history as the first Black woman" put up for consideration.
"We nominated (her), and the president has said he was going to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court," Richmond said. "So, does it matter that we didn't say the word Black in describing her in the State of the Union? You think we're trying to fool people into thinking that she's not Black?"