A new focus group of minority male voters provided pessimistic reviews of President Joe Biden’s leadership of the country, according to Politico.
In 2020, Biden’s campaign frequently touted its appeal to minority voters in contrast to his primary rival, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. After two-and-a-half years of his administration, minority men reported negative views about Biden’s handling of key issues such as the economy, according to a focus group conducted of Biden voters by HIT Strategies, and first reported by Politico.
“People had [such] high hopes for him because he said he’s gonna set the bar here … and everything he’s done has [fallen] short,” said a participant in the focus group from Los Angeles, whose name was not published. By contrast, he spoke favorably of former President Donald Trump, who is currently the leading Republican candidate to challenge Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the 2024 presidential election.
“Trump got in there and he changed stuff … if you’re getting the job done, I can’t really hate on that,” the man said when asked about Trump’s legal controversies.
“I don’t think it makes any difference [between Trump or Biden] … The economy seems to be fried, no matter who’s in office,” said another black man from Cleveland, who participated in the focus group, according to the report. He also lamented Biden’s inability to shepherd the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act through the Democratic-led 117th Congress and said that he was unsure about whether he would vote for Biden in the next election.
“I’m definitely not happy with where America was when Trump was president. And I’m not happy with where America is now that Biden’s president,” he said. “So I’m hoping there’s some other candidate or alternative besides these two.”
Other minority voters beyond the HIT focus group have expressed similar concerns with Biden’s presidency. “When you don’t address the things directly, when they don’t go according to what you said publicly they were going to, you can’t just kind of sweep it under the rug,” said Jennifer Roberts, a Democratic-registered black woman in Atlanta who owns a tow-truck business, to The New York Times. She expressed disappointment with his performance managing the economy, specifically inflation, according to the Times.
“[Biden needs to be] a little bit more sincere … [instead of] pandering to us when it’s time to vote,” said Marvin Dutton, a black entrepreneur in Atlanta, the Times reported.
Democratic strategists are worried that these concerns may depress minority voter turnout, which Biden is depending on to win in swing states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania.
“Not a lot of good words on this list,” said Terrance Woodbury, the CEO of HIT Strategies, when he described words that respondents, all of them Biden voters in 2020, offered when asked about the country, which included “discouraged,” “pathetic” and “pessimistic.”
“It’s a difficult conversation to go back into those communities and explain why we didn’t get criminal justice reform,” said Kevin Harris, who was executive director for the Congressional Black Caucus, to the Times.
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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