Former President Donald Trump appears to have made significant inroads with black Americans. That’s according to several state exit polls that show the former president picking up a larger percentage of the black vote than he did in either 2020 or 2016.
While exit polls aren’t predictive of the outcome of an election and should be taken with a degree of caution, they do often pick up on voting trends.
Early exit polls released by CNN and Fox News showed Trump winning about 20% of black men in North Carolina and Georgia, and getting double digits of black voters in general. According to Politico, that’s a significant shift from 2020 “when Trump won 11% of black voters in Georgia and just 7% in North Carolina.”
It wasn’t just Georgia and North Carolina, however. Exit polls from NBC indicated a large shift in the black vote toward Trump in Wisconsin, as well.
“This year Trump is pulling about 20% of the black vote, versus 78% for Harris,” NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns wrote on X. “Four years ago, Trump won only about 8% of black voters in the Badger State.”
While there will certainly be more data in the days to come, there’s little doubt that at least some shift in the black vote has taken place.
There were signs before the election that a shift, especially among black men, could be coming. The Trump campaign aggressively courted black voters.
Janiyah Thomas, Trump’s coordinator of black media, said in a video, according to the Hill, that Trump had made winning black voters a priority.
“Trump and Team Trump have been dedicated to the black community, meeting in our neighborhoods, listening to our voices, hopes and fears, as we work to make America great again, not only for us, but for future generations,” Thomas said in the video. “To President Trump, you are not just voters. You are the heart and very soul of this great nation.”
Trump had also picked up endorsements from several black celebrities and sports stars, including former NFL players Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
