You probably read about Democrat Marilyn Lands’ stunning victory last night in an Alabama legislative race. She defeated Republican Teddy Powell in a special election (House District 10, where the incumbent, Republican David Cole resigned after pleading guilty to election fraud) by an eye-popping 24 points, flipping the district from red to blue. The district is south of Huntsville, including the airport, part of Madison and all of Triana, whose population is 41.8% Black. Huntsville is the biggest city in Alabama, over a quarter million people, about 30% of whom are Black. After Lands was declared the victor, Biden campaign manager Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez noted that “Last month, Alabamans lost access to fertility treatments because of Donald Trump. Tonight, the voters in Alabama’s 10th House District elected a pro-choice champion in Marilyn Lands, sending Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans a clear message: they know exactly who’s to blame for restricting their ability to decide how and when to build their families and they’re ready to fight back… Tonight’s results should serve as a major warning sign for Trump: voters will not stand for his attacks on reproductive health care.”
Heather Williams, head of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, also right after the big win, said that “Tonight’s victory is a political earthquake in Alabama— the heart of Republican territory and ground zero for the most egregious attacks on our fundamental freedoms. In the first real test of backlash from voters on attacks on reproductive care and IVF, Alabama voters showed up in force to support Democrat Marilyn Lands, who ran courageously and unabashedly as a defender of reproductive freedoms.”
But who exactly showed up? Women? Minorities? Swing voters sick of Republicans’ authoritarianism? The win was the first net gain for the Democrats in the state legislature since 2002. According to Pew, 80% of Black voters in Alabama identify as Democrats; just 11% identify as Republicans. There’s no reason to believe less than 80% of Black voters on Tuesday voted for Lands.
Also, according to Pew, 91% of Black voters cast their ballots for Hillary in 2016 and 92% cast their ballots for Biden in 2020 (including 87% of Black men and 95% of Black women). There’s been a lot of handwringing in recent months that Black voters are migrating to Trump and to the Republicans. All the polls in the Lands-Powell race showed Powell winning— except the only poll that matters. And a 24 point margin is shocking. Black voters turned up— and not for Powell.
Yesterday, Alan Abramowitz, writing for Virginia’s Center for Politics, dismissed the trope about Trump gaining among Black voters. He noted that “Aside from negative perceptions of the economy, another major contributor to Biden’s deficit in the polls during 2024 has been his surprising weakness among Black voters— a group that has been a major source of support for him in the past including during his 2020 primary and general election campaigns. During the early stages of the 2020 Democratic primaries, Black voters in South Carolina provided Biden with a crucial boost after he had lost badly in Iowa and New Hampshire. Moreover, according to national and state exit polls, almost 90% of Black voters supported Biden over Trump in the general election. Yet several recent national and state polls have shown Trump making significant inroads among Black voters.”
But polling is all over the place. Civiqs shows Trump with support of 8% of Black voters, about the same as 2020 and 2016. The most unreliable and worthless poll— also the most quoted— is from Siena and it shows Trump with 23% support among Blacks, as absurd as the rest of Siena’s March 2nd findings (for the NY Times). An average of polls since late February shows Trump with 18% of the Black vote. Abramowitz noted that if that were to hold up in November, “it would represent by far the highest level of Black support for a Republican presidential candidate in the past 60 years… [N]o GOP candidate since Richard Nixon in 1960 has won more than 13% of the Black vote with only Nixon in 1972 and George W. Bush in 2004 topping 10%. The average level of Black support for Republican presidential candidates in the 10 elections between 1984 and 2020 was just under 6%.
Abramowitz also reported that “in contrast to the substantial class divide evident among white voters in recent elections, there was no difference between the preferences of college and non-college educated Black voters in 2020 with both groups overwhelmingly supporting Joe Biden. Nor is there any evidence of a gender gap or a surge in support for Donald Trump among younger Black voters. All major groups— college and non-college, young and old, male and female— reported voting overwhelmingly for Biden… Is there any evidence that Black support for Democratic candidates has eroded since 2020? One place where we might expect to find such evidence would be in the 2022 midterm elections. Although Joe Biden was not on the ballot, midterm elections are always in part a referendum on the performance of the incumbent president, and that was clearly the case in 2022 as Republicans tried to tie Democratic candidates up and down the ballot to the unpopular Biden. In the end, the strategy did not work very well, and Democrats had a relatively successful midterm election, gaining two governorships and one seat in the Senate while losing only a handful of seats in the House. This table shows the Black vote for candidates by party in 2022, according to exit polls. It shows that with the exception of the Ohio gubernatorial election, the level of Black support for Republican candidates was consistently well below the 20% level seen in some recent 2024 polls. Leaving aside the Ohio gubernatorial race in which a very popular Republican incumbent won a landslide victory over a weak, underfunded Democratic challenger, the average level of support for Republican candidates among Black voters in 2022 was about 10%. This is very similar to the average level of support for GOP House, Senate, and gubernatorial candidates among Black voters over the past few decades.
One final piece of evidence concerning the possibility of a surge in support for Donald Trump and the Republican Party among Black voters is the turnout of Black voters in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, especially in states with open primaries and large Black electorates such as South Carolina and Virginia. In these open primary states, Black voters would not have needed to be previously registered as Republicans in order to vote in the Republican primary.
If the Republican Party was experiencing a major surge in support among Black voters, we might expect to see an increase in the Black percentage of GOP primary voters compared with the minuscule level seen in 2020 and earlier years. However, the evidence from the 2024 exit polls shows no such surge in Black participation in Republican primaries. Black voters made up only 3% of Republican primary voters in South Carolina and only 4% of Republican primary voters in Virginia, according to the exit polls.
Additionally, and while there was no exit poll in Georgia this year, an analysis of official data from the Georgia Secretary of State by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that only 5% of Black voters participating in the presidential primary chose a Republican ballot while 95% chose a Democratic ballot. So whether based on the evidence from the 2024 exit polls (South Carolina and Virginia) or on analysis of which party ballot that Black voters chose in the recent presidential primary (Georgia), the GOP remains an overwhelmingly white party even in states where Black voters make up a large share of the overall electorate.
…[N]one of this evidence proves that there will not be a dramatic increase in Black support for Donald Trump and other Republican candidates in 2024…[T]he evidence presented in this article does provide grounds for skepticism about claims of a dramatic surge in Black support for Donald Trump and the GOP in 2024. Acceptance of such claims should at least await better evidence from well-designed surveys with large sub-samples of Black voters or data from actual election results.
Trump has support Kanye West (Ye), Snoop Dogg, Waka Flocka Flame, Benny the Butcher, Fivio Foreign, 6ix9ine, Bandman Kevo, Lil Wayne. Da Baby, Azeralia Banks, Peezy, Chief Keef, Money Man and from Kodak Black (Yak) who he pardoned while he was serving a 4 year prison sentence. And St Louis rapper Sexyy Red is also a Trump fan. “They support him in the hood,” she claimed. “At first, I don't think people was fucking with him. They thought he was racist, saying little shit against women. But once he started getting Black people out of jail and giving people that free money. Awe, baby, we love Trump. We need him back in office.”
Why? Some say it’s because of lower taxes and some are delusional about all the great stuff they imagine Trump has done for Black people. When I listen to the music most of these folks have made, I see something else— contrarianism, best understood by looking at the psychology of people who make choices based on reactions against “normalcy” or perceived expectations. I’m not criticizing the psychology— which includes things I admire, like rebellion and nonconformity— just the conclusion. No count some people feel a sense of satisfaction or empowerment in going against the grain and not adhering to societal norms or expectations. This behavior can stem from a desire for independence, autonomy or a need to assert one's individuality. I can relate. Others— and less relatable—has to do with peeps wanting to stand out or gain attention by doing something unexpected or unconventional, fulfilling psychological needs for validation or significance.
If you took Psych 101, you probably know what “reactance” is— basically a psychological phenomenon where individuals react against perceived restrictions on their freedom or autonomy. When people feel pressured or obligated to conform to certain norms or expectations, they may respond by asserting their independence through contrary behavior. This can be a way of reclaiming a sense of control over their choices and actions. Similarly, for some people, making contrary choices is part of their process of identity formation. They’ll experiment with different roles, beliefs, behaviors as they navigate their sense of self and define their place in the world. Contrariness can be a way of exploring alternatives and discovering what feels authentic to them. And… some of these distinguished rapper may be motivated by a desire for novelty or excitement and are deliberately choosing contrary options simply because they find them more interesting or engaging than conventional choices, reflecting a personality trait associated with openness to experience.