A Daily Show reporter was left stunned after a focus group of black voters from New York were evenly split on whether they were supporting President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. “Yeah, I didn’t see that coming,” he said.
“Do I have to say his name? I don’t want to, but more than likely it’s going to be Trump,” a voter named Darryl said in response to Daily Show correspondent Josh Johnson, who asked, “Who will you be voting for in 2024?”
Johnson then asked the remaining five black New Yorkers who they were voting for in the November election, and quickly found that among the six panelists, three answered Biden, while the other three said they were backing Trump.
“Okay, so, we’re an even split,” Johnson reacted. “Which — yeah, I didn’t see that coming.”
While introducing his segment seeking to find out if black voters “fuck with Trump,” Johnson noted that a recent New York Times/Siena poll shows 23 percent support for Trump among black voters, which is up 19 percent since October 2020, when Trump support was at 4 percent.
“I’ve always been a Democrat,” Darryl explained. “For the most part, with the Democratic Party, they always make a bunch of promises that they can’t deliver.”
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Erica, another Trump voter, chimed in, saying the Democrats “use the issues of the African American community as a soapbox to stand on and make promises just to get us to come out and vote, and then once we vote and everyone’s in place, it’s like, well, what happened?”
“I am not a huge fan of Trump, he don’t respect the black person,” a Biden-supporting panelist said, to which Erica argued, “And Biden does? Has Biden issued an apology for the things that he’s been caught saying?”
Notably, in 1993, Biden, then a senator, warned of “predators on our streets,” adding, “We have no choice but to take them out of society” — which many viewed as commentary about the black community.
Darryl added that Biden has also said, “If you don’t vote for me, you’re not back.”
Johnson then gave each panelist two sticks, one with a raised fist and another with a middle finger.
The Daily Show correspondent then played clips of Trump talking at the Black Conservative Federation Gala and asked each panelist to respond with either the fist of support or the middle finger to show disapproval.
“These lights are so bright in my eyes that I can’t see too many people out there, but I can only see the black ones, I can’t see any white ones. That’s how far I’ve come!” Trump said in the video clip.
All three Trump voters on the panel raised the fists to show support for Trump, while the three Biden backers chose the stick with the middle finger.
Erica laughed, “I have dark humor,” while Darryl said, “That’s the problem with sound bites in the media.”
Johnson then played a clip of Trump talking about the lawfare he has faced:
Black conservatives understand better than most that some of the greatest evils in our nation’s history have come from corrupt systems that try to target and subjugate others. You understand that. I think that’s why the black people are so much on my side now because they see what’s happened to me happens to them.
Again, the panelists responded the same way.
One Biden supporter, however, appeared to concede to Trump’s remark, saying, “There are two systems of justice. We cannot get away with the same things white folks get away with.”
After Johnson asked the Trump supporters on the panel if their vote would change “if more charges get racked up,” and “things start to become a bit more egregious,” Erica said, “Probably not.”
“You pay attention, you listen to the facts, not the fluff,” she said. “And then you actually have to start doing some research to make sure that what’s being presented to you is actual facts. And it takes some digging.”
A seemingly stunned Johnson reacted, saying, “I definitely did not sit down with this panel to change any minds, and I clearly have not.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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