Between 4 and 5 percent of surveyed Black registered voters support president in head-to-head match ups against eight potential Democratic nominees
More than 8 in 10 Black Americans say they believe Trump is a racist and that he has made racism a bigger problem in the country. Nine in 10 disapprove of his job performance overall.
Those findings come from a Washington Post-Ipsos poll of Black Americans across the country.
The survey is one of the most extensive recent surveys focused on views of the country and Trump among Black Americans, many of whom who are often represented by only small samples in customary national polls. It was conducted among 1,088 non-Hispanic Black adults, including 900 registered voters, drawn from a large online survey panel recruited at random.
According to the survey, 65 percent majority of African Americans say it is a “bad time” to be a Black person in America. That view is widely shared by clear majorities of Black adults across income, generational and political lines. By contrast, 77 percent of Black Americans say it is a “good time” to be a white person, with a wide majority saying white people don’t understand the discrimination faced by Black Americans.
The survey also said 77 percent majority of Black Americans say Trump deserves “only some” or “hardly any” credit for the 5.5 percent unemployment rate among Black adults, compared with 20 percent who say Trump deserves significant credit.
In follow-up interviews, many said former President Barack Obama deserves more credit for the improvement in the unemployment rate, which declined from a high of 16.8 percent in 2010 to 7.5 percent when he left office.
According to the survey, Black Americans report little change in their personal financial situations in the past few years, with 19 percent saying it has been getting better and 26 percent saying it has been getting worse. Most, 54 percent, say their financial situation has stayed the same.
A similar 56 percent majority of Blacks rate the national economy as “not so good” or “poor,” contrasting with other surveys that find most Americans overall rate the economy positively, although there are sharp political divides on this question.
Beyond questions about the economy, Blacks see a range of concerns impacting the country overall as well as their own communities.
Just 16 percent of Black Americans believe that most Black children born in the United States today have “a good opportunity to achieve a comfortable standard of living.” A 75 percent majority think most white children have such an opportunity.
More than 8 in 10 Blacks surveyed say they do not trust police in the United States to treat people of all races equally, and 7 in 10 distrust police in their own communities.
Black Americans also said they felt their experiences with discrimination are underappreciated by white Americans. Just about 2 in 10 say that most white Americans understand the level of discrimination Black Americans face in their lives.
Few Black voters responded positively to Trump’s campaign appeal for their votes. Exit polls taken during the 2016 election showed just 8 percent of African Americans supported Trump and 89 percent backed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, although Black turnout was significantly lower than in 2008 and 2012 for the election and re-election of Obama, the country’s first Black president.
In the Post-Ipsos poll, roughly three-quarters of Black adults say the things that Trump is doing as president are “bad for African Americans,” while a similar majority says Obama’s actions as president were good.
Others said Trump has emboldened those with racially prejudiced views and therefore set back race relations for years. “I sense a separation between myself and some of my white associates,” one person wrote.
Trump’s overall approval rating among Black Americans stands at 7 percent, with 90 percent disapproving, including 75 percent who disapprove “strongly.”
Similarly, large majorities of Black men and women disapprove of Trump, as do Black Americans across different age, education and income levels. Trump receives somewhat higher marks among self-identified Black conservatives, with 25 percent approving of his performance, compared with 5 percent of moderates and 3 percent among liberals.
Few Black Americans appear open to supporting Trump’s bid for reelection at this point. He receives between 4 and 5 percent support among Black registered voters in head-to-head match ups against eight potential Democratic nominees. But the level of Democratic support depends on who is the party’s nominee, peaking at 82 percent for former vice president Joe Biden and falling to 57 percent for former South Bend, IN mayor Pete Buttigieg.
The Post-Ipsos survey was conducted January 2-8 through Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, a large online survey panel recruited through random sampling of U.S. households. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points among the sample of 1,088 Black adults overall, and four points among the sample of 900 registered voters.
