Their decadeslong loyalty to the party was already beginning to show signs of becoming weaker.
“Why Joe Biden Is Bleeding Black Support” was the headline of a New York magazine article in late January. Not whether, but why. And if the polling since then is indicative, the hemorrhaging continues.
Blacks have been throwing some 80% of their support to Democrats since the late 1960s. Since President Obama left office, however, the party’s grip on this key voting bloc has loosened somewhat. Hillary Clinton’s underperformance among blacks in such swing states as Pennsylvania probably cost her the presidency in 2016, when people in heavily black neighborhoods voted more Republican than they did in 2012.
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. He is the author of the forthcoming book “The Black Boom.”
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal