CNN: Biden being preferred more by older rather than younger black voters benefits him

[highplainsdem]

CNN analysis this morning by Harry Enten, expanding on comments he'd made on Twitter a few days ago:


https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/01/politics/joe-biden-black-voters-poll-of-the-week/index.html

Biden could eventually falter, but it seems to me that those counting on it just aren't talking to enough older black voters.
Biden's averaged 49% among all potential black Democratic primary voters in our last two CNN national polls. That's good enough not only for a 35-point lead over his Democratic competitors, but good enough to beat all of them combined by about 10 points.

But I think treating black voters as if they're some sort of monolith creates some sort of a blind spot for those following the campaign: the wide faultline along age in the black community.

In our polling over the last two months, Biden is getting northward of 60% of the vote among black voters 45 years and older. His nearest competitor, Warren, is 50 points behind him.

Younger black voters are far less enthralled with Biden. A look at our polling over the last three months has him in the low 30s with black voters under the age of 45.

This large age gap has existed all primary long, and it's not going away. If anything, our polling is indicating that it is getting larger.

The age gap in Biden's support benefits him in a way that I'm not quite sure folks understand. Simply put, there are more older black voters than there are younger black voters. Those 45 years and older made up 60% of all potential black primary voters. In the majority black primary in South Carolina, those 45 years and older were 71% of all actual primary voters in 2016.

I cannot help but think this age divide imperils some folks ability to understand Biden's appeal with black voters. If all you're reading about is how a lot of younger black activists don't like Biden (which is true), you're missing most of the black voting population. This is also true if you're someone who gets their news off of Twitter, where younger voices dominate in a way they don't in the real world.

Indeed, I would argue that Biden's standing with older black voters is historically strong. Looking back over the past 40 years, the only candidates with anywhere near the sort of edge with older black voters at this point in the primary that Biden has were Jesse Jackson in 1988, Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

-snip-

Enten points out that all three candidates won older black voters in the actual primary voting, Clinton and Gore won the nomination, and Jackson -- though he didn't win the nomination -- held on to his black support even after losing in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Enten concludes:

No one knows if Biden can maintain the backing of older black voters if he loses in Iowa and New Hampshire, but Jackson showed it can be done.

[tblue37]

1. Older black voters are the absolute dependable Democratic c voting bloc. They are the

ones who have had our back all along, and they must never be ignored or taken for granted--though all too often they have been.

[crazytown]

2. Biden isn't exactly the heir to the Obama coalition is he?

More like HRC in 2008 with AA support.

[highplainsdem]

3. He doesn't need to be. And neither is any other candidate.

[beastie boy]

4. Biden has

45% support among all black voters, and 67% of voters 45 and older.
https://projects.economist.com/democratic-primaries-2020/

Pretty damn close to being Obama's heir!

And if you think comparing Biden's numbers to Hillary's is a putdown, think again: on October 7, 2007, she lead Obama 57 to 33 among black voters.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/17/poll.blacks.democrats/

[crazytown]

5. Obama was strongest with the young, college educated and liberals -

Biden's weaknesses.

[beastie boy]

7. When you use the word "coalition", parsing it into segments makes no sense.

By the same token I may argue that Biden is strongest among high school grads, moderates and voters 45 and older (the most reliable voter segment).

So what?

[crazytown]

6. HRC won 80%+ of the black vote on Super Tuesday, 2016

Exit polls

In Tennessee, Clinton is winning with 82 percent of African American voters, while Sen. Bernie Sanders has picked up just 12 percent, according to a CNN News exit poll. African Americans from Virginia similarly came out in force giving her 84 percent of their vote. In Georgia, Clinton won a similarly large margin of African American voters with 83 percent, according to CNN. The network's exit polls also showed that 87 percent and 88 percent of African Americans had voted for Clinton in Alabama and Arkansas, respectively. And finally, in Texas, Clinton won 80 percent of African Americans, according to CNN's exit polls.

https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/hillary-clinton-african-americans-georgia-virginia-220073

[highplainsdem]

8. Yes, and there were only 2 strong candidates then. It's pointless to compare that to Biden's numbers

versus a very large field of candidates at this point.

[crazytown]

10. Biden is really only facing 2 candidates for the AA vote - Warren & Sanders

Buttigieg gets around 0%

[beastie boy]

12. And Bidens numbers with black voters is 20% higher than Warren and Sanders combined

[crazytown]

14. No argument there.

[Demsrule86]

13. Warren doesn't do much better than Buttigeig and neither does Sanders...

[highplainsdem]

15. The latest SurveyUSA national poll has Biden with 53% of the black vote to 13% for Sanders,

10% for Warren, 7% for Harris, 5% for Booker, 2% for Yang, 1% for Buttigieg and 1% for Steyer.

So Biden's 14 points ahead of the next 7 candidates combined.

I'm not worried about his support among black voters, or about it increasing as the Democratic field narrows.

[beastie boy]

9. Thank you.

Even though we are not talking about 2008 anymore, making parallels between Hillary's record with black voters with that of Biden ain't too bad, is it?

[Demsrule86]

11. Also, you had two candidates who both connected with AA voters...that is not the case today.

You also have more candidates...very hard for anyone to have a breakout moment.

[Gothmog]

17. If Joe Bidden...isn't on the ballot in 2020, many older black voters might just stay home,

Link to tweet

[Cha]

18. Oh.. don't do that!

Any Dem is better than the psycho in the WH.

We need to get rid of assface.