At least 9-in-10 Black voters say “racism” and “police treatment of Black Americans” will be important in their vote for president this year, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll released on Thursday.
The poll found that former Vice President Joe Biden receives support from 92 percent of Black voters while President Donald Trump receives 5 percent support. Among Black voters who will vote for Biden, 49 percent said they “support” Biden while 50 percent said they will vote to “oppose Trump.”
The poll, which conducted June 9-14 and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points, also found that 90 percent of Black voters “disapprove of Trump’s response to [George] Floyd’s killing while in the custody of Minnesota police officers, while 76 percent disapprove of his handling of the protests that followed.”
And while Trump has touted his criminal justice reforms on the stump, 86 percent of Black voters said Trump has done “nothing” to “reduce discrimination against black Americans in the criminal justice system.”
The poll found that immigration (60 percent) was the least important issue to Black Americans. The survey asked Black voters about the importance of racism (92 percent), police treatment (93 percent), the economy (86 percent), health care (89 percent), and the coronavirus pandemic (83 percent).
Just 7 percent of Black voters believe Trump is “sympathetic to the problems of Black people” while 90 percent believe he is not. The poll found that 87 percent of Black voters believe Trump is “biased against Black people” while 9 percent think he is not.
In contrast, 74 percent of Black voters believe Biden is sympathetic to their problems compared to 23 percent who believe he is not. In addition, 17 percent of Black voters believe Biden is “biased” while 78 percent believe the former vice president is not “biased against black people.”