Explaining the Change in Support for Kamala Harris in the Black Community

Much has been made about Ms. Harris’s approval rating relative to Trump’s since ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket. Currently, she leads the former president by four points (50-46) among registered voters, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll.*

The poll further explains that the Vice President’s rating is also improving among women. She bested Trump by six points among women before the convention; she’s now ahead of him by 13 points. It’s beyond question that women (and younger voters) must turn out and support Harris if Democrats are to have any chance of prevailing in November.

Less attention has been paid to another critical constituency: Black voters. Particularly missing is analysis of how the Black vote has shifted since President Biden declined to run for another term. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that the Black vote matters.

To Pew’s credit, it has done well to track Black opinion during the campaign. For instance, it reports Harris’s favorability increasing from 62 percent (July) to 79 percent (August). What’s more, the new ticket has increased interest in turning out in the Black community—from 56 percent (July) to 67 (August).

But what, exactly, is it about Harris’s candidacy that excites the Black community now?

Due to the nature of its data Pew cannot comment on what’s driving these changes. Most public polls don’t interview the same people over time, which makes it difficult to say much about why people change their opinions.

We at Black Insights Research, however, are able to answer such questions. After first interviewing a national sample of the Black electorate in March/April, we recontacted them in August. Thus, we are able to comment on what’s driving Harris’s numbers in the Black community.

For present purposes, we explain Black attitude change in three domains: “favorability,” “likelihood to vote,” and the “changing share of the Black vote” as the headliner shifted from Biden to Harris.

After accounting for how people felt about Harris in our March/April survey (increasing by 61 percent by the time we reached summer), we find that several factors contributed to increasing favorability toward Harris over the summer, relative to the spring:

• Threat leads the way to improving Harris’s standing in the Black community. For example, those who view another Trump presidency as a threat (since March/April), push them to increase their affection for Harris in the summer, by 8 percent.
• Likewise, as approval of the MAGA movement—which the Black community views as an existential threat—declines, it improves opinions of Harris by 10 percent.
• Other factors also help explain why Black people embrace Harris more now than in the spring: (a) on abortion, members of the Black community who view the loss of abortion rights as an increasing threat to the group tend to embrace the Vice President 5 percent more now than in the spring; (b) those who identify as conservative are 20 percent less enamored with Harris now than in the spring; and (c) those who are least worried about the national economy now 6 are percent more likely to embrace Harris versus the spring.

As we move to explore factors that push more in the Black community toward voting from spring to summer, there are only a couple that seem to increase the certitude that they’ll do so:

• To no one’s surprise, the connection between one’s intention to vote in November—as reported this spring—and now. If one said they intended to vote back then, it increases the probability that they’ll vote (now) by 71 percent.
• The threat Trump represents weighs in here as well, pushing Black people to commit to voting more now than in the past, increasing the probability of voting by 5 percent.
• Likewise, the probability that progressives will turn out now versus springtime increased by 10 percent.
• The same can be said of members of the Black community born and raised in the U.S. versus those born and reared elsewhere, where the probability of voting declines by 8 percent among the latter, relative to members of the former group.

• First, it’s no surprise that if one was committed to support Biden in the spring one is committed to Harris now. This is, by far, the most important predictor of support for the Vice President, increasing to 37 percent the probability that people will support Harris.
• Distaste for the MAGA movement, as well as the threat posed by the Dobbs decision (to overturn abortion) to the Black community, also pushed Black people to support Harris now more than they supported Biden in the spring. In the case of the former, the probability increases by 23 percent; for the latter, the probability increases by 6 percent.
• Two other factors are worth mentioning here; one is partisanship. When Black folks are increasingly committed to the Democratic party, it increases the probability by 21 percent of voting for Harris now, versus Biden then.
• The other factor is gender. As one might guess, Black women are more likely to support Harris since she ascended to the top of the ticket relative to their commitment to support Biden when he was the headliner. The probability of Black women supporting the Democrats increased by 5 percent upon Harris taking over.

We offer these observations as a means of better understanding why Harris’s fortunes have improved over the course of a few months. As it turns out, it seems they’re largely driven by a mix of existential threat (Dobbs, Trump, MAGA) and partisanship.

We’d like to highlight something that didn’t matter much in this analysis: gender.

Initially, there were questions about whether or not Black men would, on balance, support Harris. However, our results suggest no daylight exists between Black men and women, at least when it comes to (1) embracing the Vice President from spring to summer, and (2) commitment to vote during the same time period.

This confirms anecdotal evidence that Black men are mobilizing in support of the Vice President—at least as much as Black women.  

All of this suggests that Democrats, if they hope to increase support in the Black community, must press the case against Trump, and the threat posed to Black women in the wake of Dobbs decision. In another election in which the Black vote may prove crucial across several swing states, we suggest they consider the results presented.

At this point, we cannot assay who will win. We can only say that Harris’s chances will no doubt increase in the Black community in proportion to the threat it perceives.

* We are aware of the recent New York Times/Siena College poll, where the numbers are different: 48 (Trump) – 47 (Harris). This poll is based on likely voters, where the ABC/Ipsos poll we cite is based on a probabilistic sample drawn from American adults. We prefer the latter.