Former President Donald Trump is seeing over double the support by Black Virginia voters compared to September, according to a new poll.
In a survey of 1,014 Virginia likely voters, 183 of whom identified as Black, the Republican nominee garnered 32 percent support from Black voters, according to polling performed by Rasmussen Reports and American Thinker on October 24 and October 25. Polling conducted by the group from September 19 to September 22, which included 197 Black voters, saw Trump receiving only 15 percent of their vote.
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, however, maintains her healthy advantage among Black voters in the Old Dominion State, with 64 percent favoring her in the October polling. She holds the overall favorability edge as well, with 48 percent of all Virginians’ votes compared to Trump’s surveyed 46 percent.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci/Matt Rourke
Newsweek reached out to the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment on Monday.
The state of Virginia and Black voters overall have seemed to pose challenges for the Republican nominee. Last week, he phoned into an early voting rally hosted by Governor Glenn Youngkin‘s PAC in Chesterfield, hoping to rally GOP voters ahead of his November 2 appearance in Salem.
“November 5 is going to be the biggest, most important day in our country’s history,” Trump told Youngkin and rally-goers by phone. “We win Virginia, it’s over.”
While Trump and Harris have heavily campaigned in battleground states critical to victory—such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and North Carolina—Trump says that “Virginia is still in play.” The polls tell another story.
Once a GOP stronghold, Virginia has shifted blue in presidential contests since 2008, with Trump losing by five percentage points in 2016 to Hillary Clinton and by over 10 points in 2020 to President Joe Biden.
A Washington Post/George Mason University poll conducted from October 19 to October 23 shows Harris leading Trump by six points in Virginia, 49 percent to 43 percent. She held an eight-point lead in September.
FiveThirtyEight’s average polling shows Harris ahead by 6.1 points in the state. As of October 28, she is predicted to receive 49.6 percent of the vote, with Trump seeing 43.5 percent.
The Republican nominee is set to visit Virginia on November 2, as Trump will make a campaign stop at the Salem Civic Center three days before Election Day.
Trump last campaigned in Virginia on June 28 in Chesapeake, with a previous rally held on March 2 at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. Harris has not rallied in the state since securing the party’s nomination.
Harris, however, has been focusing on Black voters throughout the country, as former President Barack Obama has joined the campaign trail and the vice president has appeared on such media outlets as PlayersTV, with NBA stars CJ McCollum and Chris Paul, and podcast Club Shay Shay, with former NFL star Shannon Sharpe.
Harris told the National Association of Black Journalists that it’s important to not work from the assumption that “Black men are in anyone’s pocket.”
“Donald Trump has never understood the issues and disparities affecting the Black community,” Harris posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday. “This is the same man who called for the execution of the Central Park 5, refused to rent to Black families, and recently said that Black immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating their (pets).”
Donald Trump has never understood the issues and disparities affecting the Black community.
This is the same man who called for the execution of the Central Park 5, refused to rent to Black families, and recently said that Black immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating their… pic.twitter.com/LYf3peLqfW
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 28, 2024
Polling from ABC News/Ipsos, published on Sunday and conducted online from October 18 and to October 22 with a random sample of about 2,800 people, showed Harris with a greater advantage among likely Black voters than Biden had in the 2020 exit polls, with 83 percent support compared to 75 percent.
A poll released by the NAACP showed 63 percent of Black voters favor Harris over Trump (13 percent). But the gender disparity is noticeable. While support for Harris among Black women remains strong at 67 percent, it falls to 49 percent among Black men under 50.
Among early voters in swing states, a poll conducted by Harvard University, HarrisX and The Harris Poll from October 11 to October 13 found that Harris led among female, Black and Latino voters as well as urban and suburban voters.
But less than three-quarters of Black likely voters in Georgia plan to vote for Harris, according to a poll conducted by the University of Georgia’s survey research center. The polls found that 73.8 percent said they would vote for Harris compared to 7.6 percent for Trump, with 17.6 percent undecided.
Harris has also released policy proposals geared toward Black men, from fully forgiving loans of up to $20,000 for Black business owners to focusing on health issues facing Black men.
