Harris maintains strong lead among Black swing-state voters in a new poll
Vice President Kamala Harris still has a wide lead over former President Donald Trump among Black voters in battleground states, according to a new poll, which shows a key slice of undecided Black voters still poised to make a decision about the presidential election.
The findings, from a Howard University Initiative on Public Opinion poll of 981 likely Black voters in battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — show that 84% of likely Black voters will support Harris in November and 8% say they’ll support Trump. Another 8% are undecided.
The results are largely within the margin of error of the previous edition of the survey from September, though they show a small slip for Trump. The September poll showed Harris at 82% (2 points lower than now), Trump’s support at 12% (4 points higher), and 6% undecided or in favor of another candidate.
As many as 66% of Black voters report being very excited to vote for president in November, including 35% who are still undecided about whom they’ll vote for.
While an overwhelming majority of Black voters overall plan to support Harris, the data shows a small shift among independents from a month ago.
Self-described Democrats and Republicans (including independents who lean toward either party) stayed consistent in their support for Harris and Trump. Support for Trump among independent Black voters is a sizable 18%, up from 12% in September.
The share of independents who said they’re undecided also went up since September — 26% compared to 20%.
It’s worth noting that the field dates were Sept. 4-11, so most respondents were interviewed before the Sept. 10 debate.
Yet, while some demographic subgroups are slightly less likely to say they’ll vote for Harris in the new poll, Trump’s numbers among those groups in the head-to-head race didn’t move. Why? Those voters are shifting to say they’re undecided.
Gender and age divides: Young Black men are most likely to support Trump
The latest poll findings show that Harris is leading Trump by 81 points among Black women, but only 59 points among Black men. The same share of men and women — 10% — say they’re undecided.
Black voters support Harris by large margins across all age groups, but her margin among young voters (63 points) is much smaller than her margin among older voters (82 points).
Trump garnered 21% support among Black men under 50 years of age, with Harris at 68% — a relatively small margin for Harris at +47 points. Another 11% are undecided.
Harris holds strong among young Black women, with a 75-point lead, but 12% are still undecided.
Gender divide on the issues
As many as 22% of Black voters said democracy/voting rights/elections are the most important issue to them in their vote for president. Another 19% chose economy/jobs/wages, 16% said abortion/women’s health care/women’s rights and 10% said inflation/cost of living.
There are stark differences by gender.
Black men cited democracy and the economy as the most important issues to their vote (22% support for each), followed by “other” (13%), and inflation (9%), honesty/integrity/character (7%), and abortion and anti-Trump rhetoric (6% each).
Black women cited abortion as the top issue (21%) to their vote, followed closely behind by democracy (19%) and the economy (18%).
Across gender groups by partisanship and age, abortion did not hit the top five issues for men and anti-Trump rhetoric didn’t make the top five issues for women.
Among undecided Black voters, 19% said the economy is the most important issue to their vote, followed by inflation/cost of living (14%).
The Howard Initiative on Public Opinion designed and administered the multimodal survey of 981 likely voters who self-identified as African American or Black and indicated they were registered to vote in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. The survey was conducted Oct. 2-8 through text-to-web online surveys and telephone (landline and cellphone) interviews. The margin of error for likely voters is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
