Donald Trump Has Doubled His Support Among Black Voters: New Poll

Former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, has doubled his support among Black voters, a recent Morning Consult poll found.
A Morning Consult survey of 11,501 registered voters conducted between August 15 and August 18, 2024, found that Trump has garnered significantly more backing from Black voters compared to his 2020 run. The 2024 poll shows 21 percent of Black voters supporting Trump, a 12-percentage point increase from a 2020 Morning Consult poll. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.
Trump’s increase in support among Black voters contrasts with the poll’s findings for Democratic candidates. In 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden received 81 percent support, according to the poll. The Pew Research Center found that Black voters overwhelmingly supported Biden in the 2020 election, with 92 percent backing his candidacy.
In August 2024, the poll found newly-named Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris with 72 percent support among Black voters. While Harris still polls significantly better than Trump among Black voters, she lacks the percentage growth seen by the GOP candidate in this survey.
Specifically, the poll found that Trump’s support among Black moderates and Black conservatives has increased significantly, doubling among moderates. In 2020, 8 percent of Black moderates supported Trump, whereas in 2024, that figure has risen to 19 percent.
Among Black conservatives, 44 percent now back Trump, up from 24 percent in 2020. The poll also found that the percentage of respondents with no opinion decreased by 5 percent.
On the other hand, 51 percent of Black conservatives support Harris, down from the 65 percent who backed Biden in 2020. Among Black moderates, 74 percent support Harris’ campaign, compared to 81 percent who supported Biden.
Newsweek reached out to Harris and Trump’s campaigns for comment via email on Friday.
The Morning Consult poll data presents a different picture of the 2024 election compared to previous polling among Black voters.
Newsweek previously analyzed the latest national poll from pollsters since the start of August that provides a breakdown of voting intention based on race and found that on average, Harris is polling at 76 percent among Black voters while Trump is polling at 16 percent.
For example, the most recent poll included in Newsweek’s analysis is the YouGov/The Economist poll conducted between August 17 and August 20. In that poll, Harris has the support of 77 percent of Black Americans, while Trump polls at 14 percent, a lead of 63 points. But, only 151 respondents of the 1,368 surveyed identified as Black.
Poll crosstabs such as these can be unreliable when broken down to look specifically at Black voters, or any small demographic group. The smaller the subgroup within the overall poll sample, the greater the margin of error. Polls often include only a limited number of Black respondents, making the results less statistically reliable.
Both Trump and Harris have been campaigning for Black voters’ support, with Trump notably appearing at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention last month, where he questioned Harris’ race, saying “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now, she wants to be known as Black,” he said.
Harris has publicly discussed her racial heritage as the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother.