Ideological sorting, class voting have profound effect on US electorate, including ethnic minorities

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00:00Welcome. The U.S. presidential election will be held three weeks today, and polling suggests

00:08it remains a razor-tight race. Yesterday, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump were campaigning

00:15in the key state of Pennsylvania. There, the Republican candidate celebrated what he described

00:20as his growing popularity among Black and Hispanic voters, while Harris used her speech

00:26to argue Trump is a threat to American democracy.

00:56It's an enemy of our country. It's a serious issue. He's saying, he is saying that he

01:06would use the military to go after them. Think about this.

01:12We win Pennsylvania. We win this great commonwealth. We are going to win the whole ballgame. It's

01:18such an important place. And we relate. And we are up in the polls fairly nicely. And

01:25I'll tell you what, our poll numbers have gone through the roof with Black and Hispanic

01:31have gone through the roof. And I like that. I like that. I like that.

01:38While Trump there talking about his support among non-white voters, and while Harris has

01:44a clear lead in Black and Latino communities, polling does suggest that Trump is having

01:49success in winning over people, particularly men in those constituencies. Our correspondents

01:56Fraser Jackson and Fania Lahr have been looking into this, and they bring us this report now

02:00from Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

02:06Pennsylvania will likely be the make or break state in November's presidential election.

02:1011% of people here are Black, a key electorate for the two parties vying for their vote.

02:17In Pittsburgh, Sharnae Davis is the founder of a group dedicated to helping Black women.

02:22Our goal is to facilitate conversations about the realities of Black women. Black women

02:28are the essential workers. Black women are the caregivers, oftentimes underpaid. Why

02:34is it important to support Black women? It's because Black women support everyone else.

02:39Since Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate, the latest polls show 83% of Black

02:45women are highly motivated to vote, up from 74% when Joe Biden was on the ticket.

02:51What's your excitement level at the potential of us having a Black woman president?

02:56I cannot comprehend myself. I am so happy, so excited. Now I can breathe.

03:04Oh good.

03:05Because I know that someone coming after me.

03:09Connie is one of the Black women who helped raise $40 million in 48 hours for the Kamala

03:15Harris campaign.

03:16When you have someone of her intelligence, someone who has experience, someone who knows

03:23all of what goes into being a president and still wants to be president and is prepared,

03:32that's what I like about her.

03:35While the vast majority of Black women have rallied behind Kamala Harris, Black men aren't

03:42A quarter of Black men under 50 are leaning towards Donald Trump.

03:46I'm the biggest patriot in here.

03:49Oh wow.

03:50We know that.

03:51Oh wow.

03:52These young men are Republicans. They use their YouTube channel to analyze and comment

03:57on political speeches and events.

03:59I honestly think, you know, the Black vote is changing. We've seen it.

04:03I've seen people I never thought would post the Trump situation on the internet and they're

04:08posting it. Even my old friends, they're posting it.

04:10Created in 2020 and named the Cartier family, they now have over 1 million subscribers,

04:17a figure that is only going up and which for them is proof of a mental shift among Black Americans.

04:23You're conditioned to grow up and think Republicans are bad, conservatives are racist.

04:27This is what's progressive.

04:29Liberals and Democrat ideology always preaches the people of color, inclusion and things

04:35like that and conservatives just call it like, you're a man, you're a woman, everybody's the same.

04:40And I think us as four young Black men, we make more people comfortable really being more

04:44outspoken about it.

04:45Ideas totally aligned with the Republican Party of old, despite Donald Trump's unquestionable

04:51influence on it.

04:52We want the border closed. That's probably our biggest thing is that's affecting Black

04:56America in a big way.

04:57I'd say men and women's sports.

04:59I don't want a man in a woman's bathroom or none of that.

05:03Also like the economy, like inflation is crazy right now.

05:06Like it's cheaper to rent than own in every state.

05:08Trump being a businessman and like where the economy was during his first term, I mean

05:13it's pretty obvious that he's the best choice to fix these problems.

05:17It's hard to measure the exact percentage of Black Americans who are leaning Republican,

05:22but one thing is certain.

05:24If Donald Trump gets even a small percentage of their votes, it could well be enough to

05:29bring the election in his favour, setting up a battle for votes that promises to last

05:34until November 5th.

05:38Fraser Jackson reporting for us there.

05:40And to talk a bit more about race politics and how it is influencing this election, Richard

05:46Johnson joins me on the line now.

05:48He's a lecturer in US politics at Queen Mary University and his research interests include

05:55ethnic minority voting patterns and the Republican Party.

05:59Good to talk to you then on the programme today.

06:01Good afternoon.

06:02Look, a figure that was mentioned in that report we just aired is that a quarter of

06:07Black men under 50 are leaning towards Donald Trump, given the, I mean, frankly racist language

06:14that we know he's used in the past.

06:17How do you explain that?

06:19Well, part of it, I think, is a changing ideological shift within the African-American community.

06:26So we have seen that polls have shown for decades, actually, that about a third of African-American

06:33voters are ideologically conservative, that their politics sits on the right.

06:39And yet those voters have, a large chunk of those voters, a majority of those conservative

06:46Black voters have nonetheless voted for the Democratic Party.

06:50And what we are seeing is a movement of people who are on the right, ideologically, now voting

06:59for the Republican Party within the African-American community.

07:02This is a trend which we've seen in other racial groups.

07:07We see this very strongly with white voters over a number of decades.

07:12We've seen it also with Asian-American voters.

07:14We've seen it with Hispanic voters.

07:16This seems to be the election where we're seeing that movement.

07:21And political scientists call it ideological sorting, where people are aligning their existing

07:28set of policy beliefs with a political party that is more in line with those policy beliefs.

07:33Whereas previously, many African-Americans, even though they didn't actually agree with

07:36the Democrats on many different issues relating to either the economy or social issues,

07:43nonetheless voted for the Democratic Party, perhaps for historic reasons, for reasons

07:47of family socialization.

07:49Those linkages are now weakening.

07:51And I want to talk about a poll from The New York Times, which does indicate that Harris

07:58has around 78% of support among Black voters.

08:02That is a lot, but it compares to something like 90% support for Democrats in previous

08:08recent elections.

08:09I wonder if you think that suggests some reticence towards Kamala Harris herself rather than

08:16a particular affinity for Trump.

08:18I mean, bluntly put, is that because Kamala Harris is a woman?

08:23Well, there has been a decline in African-American support that predated Kamala Harris.

08:30So when Biden was the nominee, the Democrats or the presumptive nominee, I should say,

08:37the Democrats were actually expecting to do even worse with African-Americans.

08:42And so Harris's position on the ticket has actually boosted Democrat support relative

08:48to what it was, say, six months ago.

08:51But you're absolutely right that in historic terms, Vice President Harris is potentially

08:58looking at winning the lowest share of the African-American vote of any Democrat since

09:03the 1960s.

09:05I would say, though, that perhaps in another point of irony, Vice President Harris is looking

09:11to win perhaps the highest share of the white vote of any Democrat since the 1970s.

09:17And that's because college-educated whites are moving quite strongly in her direction.

09:24Again, this is not something that just came out of nowhere.

09:27We've seen a trend of college-educated whites moving to the Democratic Party over recent

09:33years.

09:34I mean, if we go back and we look at in 2008, Barack Obama won a margin of plus seven with

09:42college-educated voters and plus eight among non-college-educated voters.

09:47In other words, there wasn't much of a class difference in voting behavior.

09:51The latest poll suggests that Vice President Harris is polling with a 20-point margin over

09:58Donald Trump among college-educated voters, but a 16-point deficit among non-college-educated

10:04voters.

10:05So in some sense, what I think we're seeing is a rise of class voting in quite a profound

10:11way in this election, and that's having an effect with ethnic minority communities as

10:17well.

10:18Yeah.

10:19And talking about the role that class may be playing in this election, I suppose it's

10:23pertinent as well then to talk about the economy, talk about inflation.

10:26We know that is the biggest issue for voters in this upcoming election.

10:32Is Trump's messaging on that, do you think, cutting through in particular with black,

10:38Latino, other minorities?

10:40I think that has to be part of it.

10:43And in some ways, this is a bit of an indictment against the Biden administration's ability

10:49to sell politically their economic program.

10:54I mean, the Biden presidency has been one of the most active presidencies in trying

11:00to shape the economy in a way that improves the working conditions of lower-income voters,

11:07and particularly with a focus on investment and employment, and actually quite a big boost

11:14for manufacturing jobs during Biden's presidency.

11:19But you're right that the inflation story has overshadowed that, but I think also there's

11:24been a failure to get that political, to sell that story in kind of meaningful political

11:32terms.

11:33And Donald Trump has put this really at the center of his campaign.

11:38And really, the groups that Trump is looking to animate in this election across different

11:46racial groups are voters who we would call kind of low-engagement voters, voters who

11:52certainly don't vote in midterm elections, don't even necessarily haven't voted in recent

11:57presidential elections.

11:59And it makes it very difficult, actually, for us to predict how those voters are going

12:04to behave, because pollsters have to try to make certain calls about weighting the proportion

12:10of those people and how they're going to vote.

12:13So part of this also is we have to take the polls with a heavy pinch of salt.

12:20There are some, for the Democrats, alarming results among non-white voters, and that may

12:26materialize.

12:27But also, part of that might be being shaped by voters saying that they're going to vote,

12:34but the question is, will they actually turn out on election day?

12:38Just a final question for you.

12:39I'm interested to think about the Arab-American vote a little in somewhere like Michigan,

12:45another swing state.

12:46I mean, given the war in Gaza, now in Lebanon as well, do you think actually Arab-American

12:53voters could swing Michigan one way or the other?

12:56Well, look, if the polling is correct, this is an election that's going to have a razor-thin

13:02margin.

13:03And there are seven swing states.

13:06Trump won six of them in 2016.

13:09Biden won six of them in 2020.

13:12And the result could be decided anywhere in between this time round.

13:17Some of these states could be decided by a few thousand votes.

13:20And so if any group doesn't turn out to vote, and this is a group that historically the

13:28Arab-American vote has been for recent election cycles quite strongly democratic, if they

13:33don't show up and it's a close result, then yes, that could swing a state like Michigan.

13:39But I would just add that, of course, the Arab-American population, although it's a

13:44meaningful population in Michigan, it's much smaller than, say, the African-American population

13:49or the Latino population, or indeed, of course, the white population.

13:53So it's not just the case that if their decision to perhaps not participate or not vote in

14:01this election, to boycott this election in a very, very tight race might make a difference.

14:06But the campaigns need to think about how they can perhaps compensate that by mobilising

14:10other groups. And there are opportunities for those both campaigns to do that.

14:15Richard Johnson talking to us there from Queen Mary University in London.

14:18Thank you very much indeed.

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