63% of African Americans feel taken for granted by the democratic party

[Adam Griffin]

The black vote comprises 25% of the national Democratic electorate, 25% of elected Democratic House members (and 20% of all Democratic members of Congress), and has definitively decided the Democratic nominee in every contest going back to at least 2004 - arguably all the way back to 1992. Additionally and at the state level, black representation (as a share of Democratic voter coalitions) in most state legislatures where their population is a non-negligible percentage is at parity or exceeds their share of the Democratic coalition for said state. In terms of constituency size combined with propensity for bloc voting (in both primary and general), there is no remaining constituency within the Democratic Party that has as much influence as black voters.

Everything - messaging, resource allocation, redistricting decisions, policy proposals - is influenced by this reality. In fact, it would be a fool who doesn't realize that a large portion of the current unrest in the Party over strategy and ideology is being influenced by this; Democrats have been increasingly relying on narratives that largely tie into the prioritized political preferences of many black voters (i.e. social justice) at the expense of the prioritized political preferences of many non-black voters (i.e. economic justice). It has been an easy path to walk down, considering that most special interests and big donors to the Democratic Party prefer a message that prioritizes social issues over economic ones; combined with what the largest single bloc predominantly prefers, it's had a good run.

However, I find it difficult to believe that the sentiment shared by black Democrats (feeling taken for granted) wouldn't be just as palpable among the Democratic coalition at-large in a simple survey. The primary difference, of course, is that not all groups and ideologies within the Democratic Party have been getting ignored equally.