Why these Black voters back Trump

FLINT, Michigan — Hours after Vice President Kamala Harris sat for an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, former president Donald Trump made a pitch of his own to Black voters Tuesday night.
Appearing in a town hall in Flint, a majority-Black city sixty miles north of Detroit, Trump focused his remarks on the economy, promising the audience they would be “better off” financially with him as president.
Polls show that the economy is the key issue for African American voters. One national poll — conducted by the NAACP, Hart research and HIT Strategies — found that the economy is the top issue for Black voters, mirroring the result from an August Deseret News/HarrisX national poll.
Now, race has become a central part of the election. Trump, during an interview with the NABJ in July, suggested that Harris changed her racial identity to help herself politically. “I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said. (Harris, the daughter of a Black father and a South Asian mother, identifies as both.) Trump frequently mispronounces Harris’ first name, a gesture Harris’ allies say is racist. And he insists that undocumented immigrants are taking “Black jobs,” which he defines as “any job” where migrants are “taking employment away from Black people.”
Meanwhile, Trump is running on the promise of a return to pre-pandemic economic conditions, which he claims benefit Black Americans in particular. “I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln,” he told the NABJ.
To his Black supporters, that promise — not his racial comments — are what drive their support. “That other stuff doesn’t even matter,” said Kenneth Malone, a Flint resident who was at the rally. “Trump didn’t even care about her race until the Democratic Party — ‘the first Black, female, woman of color’ — they’re the ones that started it.”
Identity politics, Malone added, “isn’t effective” anymore. “Barack (Obama) didn’t put no money in my pocket.” Malone, 55, said, “that was the last straw with me. More and more people are interested in policy, not identity politics.”
But when given the opportunity to explain just what his policies would do for middle- and working-class voters, Trump’s answers were convoluted. Willie, a Black man who introduced himself as a contractor and lifelong Flint resident, asked Trump during the town hall what he plans to do on taxes. Trump responded by referencing policies that would likely affect only wealthier Americans: he solicited cheers by promising to end the estate tax, and he blasted Harris’ proposal to tax unrealized capital gains. “I don’t know how any rich person, or any person that’s in business, can even think of supporting her,” Trump said of Harris.
The town hall’s major theme, plastered on screens and signs around the arena, was that America was “better off with Trump.” For Trump’s Black supporters in Flint, the Trump era is remembered fondly. “When Trump was in office, African Americans had the lowest unemployment rate, I believe, ever,” Kian Johnson, a Flint resident, said. “We all have our flaws, but as far as what I can see, what president I would rather have, I’d rather have him.” (Black unemployment reached a record low under Trump, but dipped even lower in 2023, under Biden.)
Does Johnson, a Black man, think Trump is racist? “Absolutely not,” he said. “Do I believe Trump is judgmental? I think we all are.” Johnson added that Trump’s comments about Harris’ race may turn off some Black voters, but only those “that are not enlightened on what’s going on,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. You’ve got to be active. You can’t just listen to other people and what they say.”
To some, what Trump isn’t saying is even more important. A small group of protesters gathered outside the event with signs reading “RACISM HURTS EVERYONE” and “WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT.” The Rev. Matthew Hogue-Smith, who organized the demonstration, said he wanted Trump to “stop listening to your pockets and start listening to the people that his policies are harming.” Claire McClinton, a Black woman who joined the demonstration, added that a decade after the Flint water crisis, many Flint residents still do not have clean water. “Let’s start out by even acknowledging it,” McClinton said. “We haven’t heard a word about it (from Trump).”
Harris, meanwhile, seems to see small warning signs in her support among Black voters. Though the August NAACP survey found Harris leading Trump by a wide margin, 66% to 13%, the gap is much smaller among Black men under the age of 50: only 49% say they will vote for Harris, while 26% back Trump.
In her appearance with the NABJ Tuesday, Harris acknowledged she “has to earn” support from that demographic. “I think it’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket,” she said.
To some undecided Black voters, the memory of the pre-COVID economy is tempting. “I liked where America was going before, despite COVID and everything,” said Chris Lafear, 55, who attended Tuesday’s town hall as an undecided voter. “Lately, I don’t see anything that I like.”