Black House leader Jim Clyburn (D-SC) on Sunday downplayed recent polling showing slippage among black male voters for President Biden.
Some recent polls have shown Republican former President Donald Trump expanding his support among black voters, but Rep. Clyburn, 83, insisted that the key Dem voting bloc isn’t ditching the party in large numbers.
“I don’t think they’ve left the fold. I don’t know what is going on with the polling taking place here,” Clyburn told NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday.”
He recalled a visit he made to an NAACP event Saturday evening, saying there was “zero support in that place last night for Donald Trump,” who is set to take on Biden in November.
Clyburn, the sole Democrat from South Carolina’s congressional delegation, is widely credited with rescuing Biden, 81, in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary after a string of defeats.
South Carolina has since become the kickoff state on Democrats’ presidential nominating calendar.
Back in 2020, Biden trounced Trump, 77, among black voters by 87% to 12%, according to exit poll data.
But ahead of the pols’ rematch Nov. 5, a variety of polls have pegged some softening of Biden’s support among black men.
Of particular concern for Democrats are some indications that fewer black voters are thinking about heading to the polls this November.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll from April found that 62% of African Americans are “certain to vote,” which is down from 74% back in June of 2020.
Newsnation anchor Chris Stirewalt referenced an April Wall Street Journal swing-state poll that found 30% of black voters were likely to vote for Trump compared to 57% for Biden.
Other surveys have not found such a dramatic shift toward Trump. Pew Research, for instance, determined that about 77% leaned toward Biden, compared to 18% for Trump, according to an April survey.
Clyburn contended that “something is wrong” is wrong with the polling business and that he has “no idea what’s going on with” the polls.
He pointed to a recent election in Maryland in which the results were off by about 20 percentage points.
“How can the polls get that so wrong? That’s going on all over the country,” he said.
Trump is averaging a 2 percentage point lead over Biden some of the latest polling of a general election matchup, according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls.
Clyburn is not alone among Democrats in his questioning of the validity of recently polling.
Nonetheless, the Biden-Harris campaign has aggressively worked to counter any potential hemorrhaging with key voting blocs including black and young voters.