Every election season, the question comes up: why do Black voters traditionally support the Democratic Party? While some people raise the question with an agenda of pushing Black voters toward the Republican Party, it’s important to understand the key points in American history that led to the voting dynamics we see today.
After the Civil War, the Republican Party was known as the party of President Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and effectively ended slavery in 1865. Due to President Lincoln’s role in emancipation, many Black Americans supported his party once they earned the right to vote, and remained loyal to Republicans in the years that followed.
In the Civil War era, it was Southern Democrats who had a reputation for bitterness over losing to the North, open racism and voter suppression tactics like poll taxes. But there’s evidence that Black voter loyalty to Republicans began to waver during Reconstruction, an era when Black citizens experienced significant political and social gains, only to see their rights come under attack again.
In the early 1900s, W.E.B. Du Bois criticized the Republican Party for allowing Black Americans to lose voting rights on their watch, according to historian Blake Wilson. As more Black people moved North during the Great Migration, Democrats began gaining their support through the influence of labor unions. The shift became more pronounced in the 1930s during Herbert Hoover’s presidency, when the Republican “Lily White Movement” sought to recruit anti-Black members, pushing Black voters further away from the party.
The era of the 1930s was another turning point, as President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, a collection of social safety net programs, helped Black families recover from the Great Depression. However, a significant shift of Black voters leaving the Republican Party occurred in the 1960s when key Democrats like John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, played a role in supporting civil rights legislation. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Fair Housing Act of 1968 were all passed during this time, and Democratic support for racial justice attracted even more Black voters.
This period of the 1960s also saw the rise of the Republican Party’s “Southern Strategy,” which capitalized on racial tensions to attract white Democratic voters who were angry about civil rights advancements. Republicans were successfully able to recruit disaffected Democrats to their party.
Political scientists Dr. Ismail White and Dr. Chryl Laird, authors of “Steadfast Democrats,” argue that civil rights victories solidified the Democratic Party’s loyalty from Black voters. “It was only when the Democratic Party took up the mantle of civil rights in the mid to late 1960s that Black support for the Party coalesced into the reliable Democratic voting bloc we know today,” wrote Dr. White and Dr. Laird.
They also note that “group solidarity politics” has been a key factor in Black voters’ loyalty, even though Black Americans are ideologically diverse. This solidarity is seen as a strategic move, using collective voting power to keep the Democratic Party responsive to their concerns. It doesn’t hurt that the party itself has racially diverse leadership, nominating the Black presidential nominee of a major party, Barack Obama; the first Black lawmaker to lead a congressional party, Hakeem Jeffries; and now the first Black and Indian female presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
In more recent years, Democratic policies such as the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) of 2010 and the American Rescue Plan of 2021 have had disproportionate positive impacts on Black Americans. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Affordable Care Act resulted in a 40% decline in the uninsured rate for Black Americans. These legislative wins have helped to further cement the party’s relationship with Black voters.
However, Black Americans are not a monolith. A Pew Research study from 2019 estimated that 4 in 10 Black Democratic voters were ideologically moderate, with a smaller share being ideologically conservative.
When President Joe Biden and Donald Trump were presumptive candidates for president, multiple polls had shown modest upticks in support from certain segments of Black voters for Donald Trump, particularly among Black men. Trump’s gains with some Black voters have played out even as prominent Black conservatives like Tara Setmayer and Michael Steele have publicly distanced themselves from the Republican Party, criticizing the party’s direction under Donald Trump.
But since Vice President Kamala Harris has replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic party ticket, a new Washington Post/Ipsos poll shows that more Black American voters are saying they’re “absolutely certain” they will vote for Harris.
It reflects that it’s not just a political party that matters to Black voters, but that candidates always make a difference in terms of actual voter enthusiasm and turnout.
Ultimately, while debates about Black voters’ allegiance to the Democratic Party can be expected to continue (if anything they make for good media debates) history shows that a combination of civil rights advancements, social justice policies, and group solidarity has kept the Democratic Party’s edge with the majority of Black voters.
In just about two months, Election Day will reveal just how impactful that edge is.
Watch the full episode of Politics Explained with Natasha Alford breaking it all down, every Wednesday and Friday, on theGrio.
Natasha S. Alford is VP of Digital Content and a Senior Correspondent at theGrio. An award-winning journalist, filmmaker and TV personality, Alford is author of the book, “American Negra.” (HarperCollins, 2024) Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @natashasalford.
