Elizabeth Warren Gaining Support Among Black Voters

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is slowly gaining support among black voters, recent polls indicate.

Warren has experienced a bump in support among black voters, according to polls released in September and early October. While Joe Biden (D) has maintained the lead – dominating among black voters – the Quinnipiac Poll released last week showed Warren garnering 19 percent support from black voters, “a nine-point jump over the poll’s August results,” as Politico reported.

Quinnipiac’s polling analyst Tim Malloy described the phenomenon as a “dramatic shift.”

“It’s certainly a dramatic shift that had to be noticed by the Biden campaign — and also Sanders, Harris and Buttigieg,” Malloy said, according to Politico. “Other [candidates] aren’t moving. And if they are, it’s in the wrong direction.”

Warren removed Biden’s status as the party’s clear frontrunner, with numerous polls showing the two neck and neck in the national field and in early primary states, such as New Hampshire.

However, Biden holds an exclusive edge in South Carolina, largely due to his broad support from black voters:

Some speculate that Warren’s continued courting could pay off, particularly if she is able to dent Biden’s support from black voters:

Politico reported:

“Elizabeth Warren has been speaking directly to a lot of black women’s issues,” said Avis Jones-DeWeever, a lead researcher on last month’s Essence-Black Women’s Roundtable poll, which has Warren in third place behind Biden and Harris. “I’m seeing those direct specifics that [she’s] looking at and focusing on.”

Her April appearance at the She The People forum — the first-ever presidential candidate forum focused on women of color — marked a significant milestone for her campaign, particularly in regards to black women. Following her remarks to a majority-black female audience, the Warren campaign sharpened its messaging to include issues unique to black Americans like maternal mortality rates and racial justice, an approach that some activists say helped alter the perception that Warren was a detached policy wonk.

Warren’s Boston-based “spiritual adviser,” Rev. Miniard Culpepper, dismissed doubts of Warren’s ability to win over black voters, telling the Washington Post, “They’ll be there.”

“She’s just hitting her stride,” he said of Warren.

Despite Biden’s strong support among black voters, former President Barack Obama has yet to endorse his former running mate’s 2020 bid.

Washington Post nonfiction editor Steven Levingston claimed in his soon-to-be-released book, Barack and Joe: The Making of an Extraordinary Partnership, that Obama did not float Biden as his successor in 2016 because he is “just another white guy.”