In his re-election campaign, President Donald Trump matched the highest percentage of African-American support of any Republican presidential candidate going back to the 1990s.
According to a news release from the Republican National Committee, 12 percent of African-Americans voted for Trump this year, which is up from 8 percent in 2016.
By way of comparison, the 2008 GOP nominee, then-Sen. John McCain of Arizona, received 4 percent of the black vote and 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, now a Utah senator, secured 6 percent in their respective races against Barack Obama.
Trump’s 12 percent tally matched the backing then-Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas enjoyed in his race against Bill Clinton in 1996.
During the last several election cycles, Republicans have tended to garner approximately 10 percent or less of the African-American vote.
Ronald Reagan did the best of any GOP presidential candidate over the last four decades, earning 14 percent of the black vote when he faced off against Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Dwight Eisenhower holds the title among all Republican candidates since World War II with 39 percent support among African-American voters in 1956.
The following year, the war hero would prove black Americans’ faith in him was well-placed when he ordered the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education desegregating the nation’s schools.
In 1957, Eisenhower also signed the first Civil Rights legislation since the Reconstruction years of the 1870s.
In this year’s election, Trump did particularly well among African-American men, with 19 percent backing him compared with 13 percent in 2016, according to the RNC news release.
The president also more than doubled his support with black women from 4 percent to 9 percent.
NBC News reported that support for the Democratic presidential candidate from black men reached a new low in 2020, with just 80 percent voting for Joe Biden, down from the 82 percent who cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“In Obama’s first presidential campaign, 95 percent of Black male voters and 96 percent of Black women chose him. Four years later, support from Black women remained at 96 percent for Obama’s 2012 re-election, while the figure for Black men slid to 87 percent,” the report said.
Trump consistently reached out to black Americans during his first term, which won him endorsements from rappers such as Lil Wayne and prompted entertainer Ice Cube to partner with the Trump administration to build out its Platinum Plan for African-American economic empowerment.
The #PlatinumPlan for Black Economic Empowerment will be life changing for so many people in the Black Community!
Pres. @realDonaldTrump is an inspirational leader and it’s great to see more seemingly unlikely allies like @icecube willing to work w/ him to #MAGA for everyone! https://t.co/87jAv050wF pic.twitter.com/PaNjJXt3CI
— PARIS (@PARISDENNARD) October 13, 2020
Brandon Tatum, the co-founder of the “Blexit” movement (black exit from the Democratic Party), told The Western Journal in an interview last year that Trump had done a lot of great things for African-Americans.
“He has advocated for the success of black folks. You see unemployment is at an all-time low. Black people are working more. Black women are doing better. All of these things are happening and occurring under President Trump,” Tatum said.
Randy Short, an African-American preacher from the Washington, D.C., area, said he was proud to have supported Trump in both 2016 and this year.
Asked by The Western Journal what policies the president had enacted that the minister supports, Short replied, “Criminal justice reform, the recent executive order issued to make pharmaceutical drugs affordable to Americans so people could no longer gouge us, the First Step Act, the I-9 compliance policies that he’s put in so Americans aren’t being displaced by people who are undocumented for jobs.”
Short continued his list by pointing to Trump’s “bringing home our servicemen and women from Afghanistan and Iraq” as well as “his success and getting a record number of peace treaties from the very turbulent Middle East, the opportunity zones,” and “the quintupling of the money given to historically black colleges and universities.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was pleased to see the increased level of support among African-Americans for Trump, which she anticipates will translate into the Republican Party more broadly going forward.
“It was my honor to be a part of laying the foundation for what I believe to be a Republican renaissance for Black Americans,” she said in the news release. “Under the inclusive leadership of President Donald J. Trump, we are just getting started, and the best is yet to come.”
Paris Dennard, RNC senior communications advisor for black media affairs, agreed with that assessment, as the president drew the highest support among minority voters of any Republican since 1960.
“The America First policies of President Trump undoubtedly drew more minorities into the Republican party,” Dennard said in the news release.
“Because of his leadership we have changed the political map forever and Republicans have a roadmap on how to be competitive and victorious in nontraditional communities.”
