Trump's Already Low Black Support Is Collapsing
Amid a Black unemployment surge, tariff-induced inflation, attacks on DEI, and culture war efforts to rewrite U.S. history, polls show Trump is evaporating the gains he made with Black voters in 2024.
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On Tuesday, President Trump falsely claimed there is broad support among Black women for his authoritarian crackdowns aimed at U.S. cities:
“You have a force of Black women,” Trump proclaimed during a 3-hour Cabinet meeting. “They're like, only Trump. They want Trump to come in. They're all over the place in Chicago."
That couldn’t be further from reality.
The truth is, underneath President Trump’s false projections of strength on the streets of D.C. and his self-proclamations of popularity is a weakening political movement with waning support—especially among Black voters.
Trump is facing a sharp decline in support across key demographics that he made gains with in 2024. From Black voters, to young voters, to Hispanic voters - his approvals are eroding. His overall approval rating is at 40% in the latest Gallup poll. Other recent polls corroborate Trump’s approval at a similar low of 38%.
A notable group showing growing signs of opposition to Trump is Black voters, a setback that could damage Republican prospects in the 2026 midterms. New signs of economic pain amid Trump’s tariffs and attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs are reminding Black voters why they opposed him in the first place.
In spite of Trump’s history of racist remarks and actions, he made surprising gains among Black voters in the 2024 election. According to the Pew Research Center, “Trump nearly doubled his support among Black voters between 2020 and 2024: 8% voted for him in 2020 vs. 15% last year. Still, 83% of Black voters backed Harris.” The biggest swing was among Black men, whose support of Trump increased by 9% between 2020 and 2024. Black women remained more steadfast in their opposition, with only a 5% swing.
Trump promised Black voters economic prosperity. Instead, he’s delivered economic uncertainty and immediately targeted policies that have helped bolster economic opportunity for Black Americans.
At the start of Trump’s second term, Decision Desk HQ’s polling average had his approval rating at 35% and his disapproval at 44% among Black voters. Since then, the average has ballooned to a 70% disapproval rate and a 24% approval rate. But these are just averages that sometimes include less reliable polls. High-quality polls in recent weeks give us a clearer view of how steeply Trump’s Black support has eroded.
In a stunning shift, Trump’s net approval rating among Black Americans in Economist/YouGov polls has dropped by 30 points since May.
In their May poll, Trump’s approval rating among Black Americans was 22% and his disapproval 69%, leaving him with a net approval of -47.
In the most recent Economist/YouGov poll conducted between August 15 - 18, they found that only 8% of Black respondents approve of Trump's job performance, while 85% disapprove, giving him a net approval rating of -77. There’s the 30-point drop.
Trump now has a higher Black disapproval rate than the percentage of Black Americans who rejected him in the 2024 election.
An August Pew Research poll found a similar disapproval rate among Black Americans of 83%.
The numbers tell a clear story: Trump’s Black support has eroded fast, driven by rising unemployment and prices. This is likely being compounded by Trump’s escalating culture wars.
Trump just oversaw the weakest 3-month period of job growth since the COVID pandemic, and before that, the Great Recession. The Black unemployment rate has risen to 7.2%, the highest level since October 2021.
Economists told USA TODAY that Trump’s gutting of the federal workforce could be adding to this surge in Black job losses, given that they made up about 18% of federal jobs before Trump took office.
Trump’s push to eradicate DEI from federal agencies and the private sector has become a smokescreen to target fundamental civil rights-era anti-discrimination policies. It’s now having a quantifiable economic impact on Black Americans.
ProPublica published a report in June that shed light on how Trump’s anti-DEI federal purge led to job losses for Black workers who weren’t in DEI-related roles. They found that “a broad assessment of Trump’s firings by ProPublica and other media shows the agencies with the most diverse staffs are often the hardest hit.”
This proves that DEI programs were not virtue signaling; They ensured equal opportunity for Americans who faced unmistakable discrimination and historical disadvantages.
Black Americans are also feeling tariff price hikes. In that August Economist/YouGov poll cited above, only 8% of Black Americans approve of Trump’s handling of inflation.
Compounding Trump’s backfiring economic moves are his culture wars that appeal to the MAGA base but alienate Black voters.
In July 2024, Trump told a Black audience at the National Association of Black Journalists, “I love the Black population of this country. I’ve done so much for the Black community of this country. Including employment… I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.”
One year after comparing himself to the president famous for ending American slavery, Trump sent a post attacking Smithsonian museums, calling them “out of control” with too much of a focus on “how bad Slavery was.”
Donald Trump is no Abraham Lincoln. In fact, he’s proving himself to be among America’s worst presidents who worked to undo the progress and whitewash the history of civil rights that Black Americans fought to achieve.
Trump’s entire premise is wrong. America’s capacity to grapple with our history, progressively right America’s wrongs, and continue to build this incredible multicultural experiment is what actually makes America great. Ignoring the dark spots of America’s history dilutes its greatness because, in spite of that history, the country has grown in remarkable ways.
We shouldn’t downplay slavery or the fight for rights marginalized groups led, because they fought to fulfill the vision the Founders initially laid out, but never achieved. That’s the most American thing imaginable.
Trump’s comments on slavery come as he’s sought to twist cultural institutions, including Smithsonian museums, into alignment with his right-wing vision, and Republicans have targeted the teaching of civil rights under the guise of combating Critical Race Theory.
Now, Trump targets Democratic cities with Black mayors, large Black populations, and declining crime in a bid to falsely depict them as dangerous dystopias - as I noted in my viral MSNBC appearance last week.
Trump is no longer even trying to court Black voters.
Perhaps, Trump’s loss of Black support is, in part, why he ordered Republicans to pursue mid-decade gerrymandering. Trump’s unpopularity has a downstream impact. In spite of the Democratic Party itself also being unpopular, generic ballots consistently show Democrats leading Republicans in the 2026 midterms. Republicans fear an imminent loss.
The Republican gerrymandering scheme will disproportionately disenfranchise Black and Latino voters, with the new Texas maps diluting the power of their vote in their effort to give Republicans 5 more House seats. But with California set to pursue retaliatory redistricting to offset these Texas maps, and other Democratic states considering similar actions if other Republican states redistrict, it could balance out.
The bottom line is this: Elections are won at the margins, and Republicans have a narrow House majority. If Trump’s Black support continues to erode, it will almost certainly hurt Republicans down ballot in 2026 and leave the GOP’s 2028 nominee with the unenviable task of defending his record.
New Yorkers knew he was a racist since he and his Daddy kept their rental properties segregated. Let’s hope the rest of the country wakes up to this reality and fights him on every front.