How did Biden only get ~90% of the black vote?

[ProgressiveModerate]

According to most exit polls and analysis, Biden won about 90% of the black vote in the 2020 election. However, if one looks at most precincts that are nearly entirely black (90%+) basically anywhere in the Country, you tend to have Biden at least matching the black population share in his vote total (with a few exceptions for extremely racially polarized parts of the deep South and when a precinct gets over 98% black). This theme is true even in places like Miami and Houston. In much of the deep South, you have like 99% black precincts where Biden got like 98% of the vote (Mobile, AL is a great showcase of this).

Just by looking at 90%+ black precincts across the country including in rural areas, I would confidently estimate Biden won about 95-98% of the black vote pretty consistently and it's mathematically impossible he would've only gotten 90% in any of these communities. Any reasonable person would reach the same conclusion.

So are these analyses saying Biden "only" got ~90% of the black vote understating his true support? The only other possibility is that blacks who live in heavily non-black communities are significantly less D, like maybe only 75% or even lower (since literally every notable black neighborhood in America is clearly giving Biden above 95%). Analyzing voting behaviors of blacks in heavily non-black communities is tricky since they’d obv be in an extreme minority in any precinct and any impact they might have on the precinct results can be discounted as statistical noise.

I'm not going to post every community/precinct I analyzed, but if you're still skeptical, I would challenge you to try and find a community where precinct results clearly indicate or even allude to Biden winning less than 95% of the black vote, let alone less than 90%. I found a few individual precincts that'd indicate this at face value, but all of them seem to be cases of the census overstating the black population of the precinct given the votes in neighboring precincts. Even if their racial and 2020 vote totals are true, they're still an extreme minority that would not bring down Biden's national share to 90%.

If it’s true black voters really broke more like 96-2 in 2020, then black Trump-supporters/black-Republicans are one of the most insanely overrepresented groups in modern American media and culture.

[Хahar 🤔]

If it’s true black voters really broke more like 96-2 in 2020, then black Trump-supporters/black-Republicans are one of the most insanely overrepresented groups in modern American media and culture.

Would this surprise you? Just look around this forum and see how excited everyone is to talk about black Republicans. If they don't exist, it will be necessary to invent them.

In reality I think that both of the suggestions you made are accurate. Black voters who live in overwhelmingly black areas should be more heavily Democratic (similarly, you would expect gay voters who live in heavily gay areas to be more heavily Democratic), which means that the true Democratic percentage of the black vote is probably less Democratic than results in these areas would indicate, but also exit polling (particularly in 2020) should not be trusted. Consider what an exit poll means in theory—polling voters exiting their polling places—and reflect on how this would have worked in 2020.

[Dr. MB]

yeah as Xahar said black voters who live in less black areas are gonna be more Republican, most black ppl don't live in 95% racially homogenous areas but you can't break their voting preferences down as much because it's not as unified

[ProgressiveModerate]

If it’s true black voters really broke more like 96-2 in 2020, then black Trump-supporters/black-Republicans are one of the most insanely overrepresented groups in modern American media and culture.

Would this surprise you? Just look around this forum and see how excited everyone is to talk about black Republicans. If they don't exist, it will be necessary to invent them.

In reality I think that both of the suggestions you made are accurate. Black voters who live in overwhelmingly black areas should be more heavily Democratic (similarly, you would expect gay voters who live in heavily gay areas to be more heavily Democratic), which means that the true Democratic percentage of the black vote is probably less Democratic than results in these areas would indicate, but also exit polling (particularly in 2020) should not be trusted. Consider what an exit poll means in theory—polling voters exiting their polling places—and reflect on how this would have worked in 2020.

How much less D do you think black voters are who live in heavily non-black areas?

Imo, in the deep South politics is so racially polarized even blacks who live in 99% white communities likely don't vote much different from blacks in 99% black communities.

Basically anywhere else, it gets more complicated.

I imagine most recent black immigrants likely vote substantially less D than blacks who have lived generations in this Country. What's weird though is in the US, I can't think of a single community that is heavily black immigrants whereas groups like Cubans and Jewish have very clear communities.

[ProgressiveModerate]

yeah as Xahar said black voters who live in less black areas are gonna be more Republican, most black ppl don't live in 95% racially homogenous areas but you can't break their voting preferences down as much because it's not as unified

This is somewhat true - one funfact that showcases this is that only about 1/3rd of MI Black population lives in Detroit.

However, a lot of blacks still live in 70% or 80% black precincts adjacent to these 95% black communities that I would imagine still vote similar to blacks in the 95% black areas. Just North of Detroit for instance, you have the community of Southfield which is just over 70% black but blacks in that community still seem to vote like 95% for Biden; most of Trump's votes can be attributed to the non-black population in Southfield, unless whites in Southfield are actually significantly more liberal than surrounding suburbs and it really are Southfield Blacks contributing to a significant amount of Trump's vote tallies.

[Хahar 🤔]

I imagine most recent black immigrants likely vote substantially less D than blacks who have lived generations in this Country. What's weird though is in the US, I can't think of a single community that is heavily black immigrants whereas groups like Cubans and Jewish have very clear communities.

This is likely false: black immigrants are as Democratic a group as it is possible to imagine. Regardless, bearing in mind that "Africans" are not an ethnic group like Cubans or Jews are, northern Miami and Cedar-Riverside in Minneapolis are both examples of what you are looking for.

[It’s so Joever]

If it’s true black voters really broke more like 96-2 in 2020, then black Trump-supporters/black-Republicans are one of the most insanely overrepresented groups in modern American media and culture.

Would this surprise you? Just look around this forum and see how excited everyone is to talk about black Republicans. If they don't exist, it will be necessary to invent them.

In reality I think that both of the suggestions you made are accurate. Black voters who live in overwhelmingly black areas should be more heavily Democratic (similarly, you would expect gay voters who live in heavily gay areas to be more heavily Democratic), which means that the true Democratic percentage of the black vote is probably less Democratic than results in these areas would indicate, but also exit polling (particularly in 2020) should not be trusted. Consider what an exit poll means in theory—polling voters exiting their polling places—and reflect on how this would have worked in 2020.

How much less D do you think black voters are who live in heavily non-black areas?

Imo, in the deep South politics is so racially polarized even blacks who live in 99% white communities likely don't vote much different from blacks in 99% black communities.

Basically anywhere else, it gets more complicated.

I imagine most recent black immigrants likely vote substantially less D than blacks who have lived generations in this Country. What's weird though is in the US, I can't think of a single community that is heavily black immigrants whereas groups like Cubans and Jewish have very clear communities.

Little Haiti? Parts of Flushing?

[ProgressiveModerate]

If it’s true black voters really broke more like 96-2 in 2020, then black Trump-supporters/black-Republicans are one of the most insanely overrepresented groups in modern American media and culture.

Would this surprise you? Just look around this forum and see how excited everyone is to talk about black Republicans. If they don't exist, it will be necessary to invent them.

In reality I think that both of the suggestions you made are accurate. Black voters who live in overwhelmingly black areas should be more heavily Democratic (similarly, you would expect gay voters who live in heavily gay areas to be more heavily Democratic), which means that the true Democratic percentage of the black vote is probably less Democratic than results in these areas would indicate, but also exit polling (particularly in 2020) should not be trusted. Consider what an exit poll means in theory—polling voters exiting their polling places—and reflect on how this would have worked in 2020.

How much less D do you think black voters are who live in heavily non-black areas?

Imo, in the deep South politics is so racially polarized even blacks who live in 99% white communities likely don't vote much different from blacks in 99% black communities.

Basically anywhere else, it gets more complicated.

I imagine most recent black immigrants likely vote substantially less D than blacks who have lived generations in this Country. What's weird though is in the US, I can't think of a single community that is heavily black immigrants whereas groups like Cubans and Jewish have very clear communities.

Little Haiti? Parts of Flushing?

Flushing doesn't really have any precincts black enough to analyze.

Little Haiti is tricky because the blackest precincts are only like 80% and it's generally hard to gauge how liberal Hispanics and Whites are in this community, not to mention what % of the black population is actually Haitian immigrants.

Compare that to Borough Park in Brooklyn or Hialeah in South Florida where it's very clear those communities are like 90%+ Jewish/Cuban respectively.

Haitians still obv vote overwhelmingly D, but whether it's 85% Biden or 95% Biden makes a substantial difference in the context of this question, and it's not a question I can really answer from the Little Haiti precincts.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

A black voter in a 75% white suburban community votes very different from a black voter in a 95% black community.  It's just hard to come up with an exact figure.  But, polling also shows that the education and age gaps are reversed among black voters.  Imagine a 40 year old black man with a college degree and a $150K a year salary living in a upper-middle class suburb and maybe even attending a majority-white church.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if he voted Republican.

[ProgressiveModerate]

A black voter in a 75% white suburban community votes very different from a black voter in a 95% black community.  It's just hard to come up with an exact figure.  But, polling also shows that the education and age gaps are reversed among black voters.  Imagine a 40 year old black man with a college degree and a $150K a year salary living in a upper-middle class suburb and maybe even attending a majority-white church.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if he voted Republican.

Ok so say you had a well-to-do suburban community in a northern state that was 95% white and 5% black. The black community in this suburb is fully "assimilated" with whites, meaning they are evenly scattered across the community, have the same median income, have the same educational attainment, attend the same churches, and just for the sake of this hypothetical, assume black adults in this suburb had comparable upbringing to the whites. Social circles aren't based around race and blacks do not face racial discrimination. Whites in this community voted 50-50 for 2020 Pres.

If the black community was completely culturally assimilated in this community, how would they vote? Does just the status of being a Black American make someone more likely to vote D, or are blacks voting so heavily D more about living "the black experience" in a heavily black, likely underprivileged community that still feels the affects of historical discrimination.

Anecdotally, most notable black conservatives I can think of tend to be distanced from the mainstream black community just because of their relative wealth, mostly non-black social circles, perhaps economically privilidged upbringing, ect. Obv though, this could be unrepresentative since it's anecdotal and "notable people" tend to come from disproportionately privileged backgrounds.