Biden leads among African-Americans, but Harris gains significantly

[DesertRat]

Biden still leads with 36%, while Kamala Harris comes in with 24%. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders follow with 12% and 9% respectively. Warren and Sanders are about where they were in a combination of our April and May samples.

Biden's advantage though has definitely ebbed over the last few months. In our April and May combined samples, Biden led the pack among African-Americans with 49%.

Meanwhile, Harris was all the way back in fourth place with 6%. In other words, she's jumped about 20 points.

Harris' gain follows a significant uptick in endorsements from black lawmakers. Harris now leads Biden in endorsements from Congressional Black Caucus members.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/democratic-primary-poll-july-2019/h_3a4e0334aea0592739c6caab1aa3046c

[Vegas Roller]

1. They painted him as a racist - sad commentary on the Democratic party nt

[StarfishSaver]

2. It's unfortunate that black voters are so gullible

[Vegas Roller]

7. I didn't say gullible

and it isn't just AA's that are moving based upon a 1 minute epoch in a debate where Biden was nefariously painted a racist.

[StarfishSaver]

8. You didn't say gullible. You just described it.

Why else claim that black voters switched allegiances based on what you claim to be a one-minute epoch? You obviously weren't swayed by it. Why do you think black voters fell for something you didn't?

[Vegas Roller]

13. People can react viscerally and emotionally to any event

without being gullible.

[StarfishSaver]

14. Oh. So black voters are visceral and emotional.

That's so much better and less insulting and patronizing than calling them gullible.

Glad you cleared that up.

[mcar]

18. I mean...

[Vegas Roller]

39. Let me point out that I never once said "black voters"

I was speaking about ALL voters. White, Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, Magenta, Cyan and Green.

[StarfishSaver]

40. You were responding to an OP about black voters changing suppoet

So it's hard to believe your comment had anything to do with cyan voters - or anyone else other than black voters, especially since you didn't you were switching the discussion to talk a out ALL voters, not just those who were the topic of the thread.

[Vegas Roller]

42. Sorry ... the post you responded to stated

"They painted him as racist" -- meaning the media and the detractors a vast majority of whom were not African Americans.


On the other hand, Rep. Clyborne, Rep. Lewis, Sen. Carol Mosley Braun supported Biden. So it was implied that I was not singling out any group.

[zackymilly]

43. I'm waiting for the response, "My time is up". n/t

[LanternWaste]

41. It's unfortunate you're unaware of 'imply' vs. 'infer'

Yours was a wonderful inference. Inaccurate, of course. But wonderful in its imagination.

[Hekate]

3. I'm sure you know that "the Democratic Party" did nothing of the sort...

...so why would you say this?

One candidate asked him an uncomfortable question -- which he knew or should have known was coming a week in advance. How is this the fault of "the party"?

[Vegas Roller]

5. It is a sad commentary because one question which misstated his position

and to paint him as a segregationist was able to sink him so badly despite a lifetime of service to fight for civil rights.

We are living in a soundbite world and I thought the Democrats were above it.


We saw the same thing during the last election when Hillary was vilified and destroyed by members of the party. All her lifetime of achievements was out the window. She limped to the finish line but was not able to win the GE because of the work of the same forces.

[emmaverybo]

9. And that was the plan--to "paint him as a segregationist." The final set piece moved into place

debate night.

[Turin_C3PO]

10. Joe's not sunk yet.

It’s gonna be a tough, close race I believe. Hopefully whoever emerges as the nominee is strong enough to take on Trump.

[marylandblue]

11. While that was how it appeared on the surface, I saw something more important

and I think a lot of other people saw it too. Harris made a sharp attack on a particular weak spot that he had created himself. Her aim was true and his response was poor. He couldn't defend himself.

At that moment I imagined Trump attacking Biden even harder with some other old controversy and thought that Biden would not be able defend himself or counterattack.

At the same time, I imagined Harris attacking Trump the same way and thought she could take him down too.

All of sudden, Biden seemed too weak to take on Trump and Harris seemed strong. That is to say, he wasn't really so electable after all.

[Vegas Roller]

12. Her attack was disingenuous and deceitful

Biden would have expected it from Trump but not from a Democrat.

Blaming Biden is blaming the victim.

[oasis]

44. +1000

[Thekaspervote]

16. Biden agreed not to attack other Dems... which he honored. To say he won't be able to take trump

Down simply isn’t so. He did a fine job against Ryan if you recall. It’s comparing apples and oranges... entirely 2 different scenerios

[marylandblue]

20. I Don't recall anything with Ryan, but I didn't see the whole debate.

He could have defended himself more effectively without attacking her back.

[Thekaspervote]

27. I was speaking of the VP debate he had with paul ryan

[marylandblue]

33. Oh, got it. Two things helped Biden out back then.

First, Ryan is really stupid. He's considered some sort of leading light on the right, but that's only because they have nobody better. Biden easily outmatched Ryan. This time Biden shared the stage with a lot of other smart, competent people, so he needed to work harder to stand out.

Second, and I hate to say it, but he's definitely slowed down in the last few years. I've seen the difference in several of his appearances over the past year. He doesn't have the sharpness he used to have. Five years ago he probably would have had a quick comeback, but this time he just couldn't come up with a good answer.

[Kind of Blue]

21. He can't attack other Dems because of his wish-washy

record on what's important to many of us so he must depend on the affable get-along-Joe personage he's cultivated. It's worked for elections to the Senate and was of use to Pres. Obama, but not in his at least 2 other presidential bids where he's failed in the 1% category.

I don't believe at this early stage that he has the strength to take on 45 if after 40 years he cannot explain being on the side of segregationists. It will never be a winning argument no matter what his intent was.

[gldstwmn]

24. I think this is his 4th go at it?

I could be wrong.

[Kind of Blue]

29. Yeah, you may be right. I can't figure it out. I thought it was 3

until I found out he floated the idea up to the 2004 national convention but came in at less than 1 percent and 1 delegate. I may be wrong but it was very low numbers. This I'm sure of: he backed out saying he wasn't really running anyway. Believe it or not, ABC News has it at 5 and the article is from 2015.

What Happened 5 Other Times Joe Biden Was Deciding Whether to Run for President

1980
The 1980 presidential contest was the first time Biden toyed with the idea of getting in the race.

In his memoir “Promises to Keep,” Biden writes that he faced doubts about the prospect even as he had just begun to consider the idea. “I have no business making a run for president,” Biden recalled thinking. “I was thirty seven-years old...Am I flying too close to the sun?”

Biden found encouragement on the topic from many of his close advisers, who came up with a plan for capturing nomination. But Biden recalled that his aide John Martilla ultimately “broke the spell” by challenging him to contemplate two questions.

“The questions you have to ask are why you’re running for president and what will you do when you are president,” Martilla said to Biden. “You shouldn’t run until you know the answer to those questions.”

The questions effectively put an end to Biden’s deliberations for another four years, when he would again considered the idea in the lead-up to the 1984 cycle.

1984
The same people who encouraged Biden to run in 1980, Biden wrote in his memoir, would again make their case for a presidential campaign in 1984.

With Biden’s friend and political strategist Pat Caddell leading the charge, Biden kept his options on the table until the last possible moment before pulling the plug on the idea. He even signed the necessary filing papers to compete in New Hampshire, which he ultimately decided not to submit.

In the end, Biden wrote that he continued to struggle to answer “the big questions: Why run? To do what?”

But in four years time, Biden would put his presidential dreams to the test in earnest.

1988
But for all its early promise, Biden’s campaign came to an end just three months after it got off the ground, following a series of damaging news reports revolving around allegations of plagiarism.

The story went into a tailspin as additional revelations surfaced suggesting a pattern of plagiarism in Biden’s past, including an incident in law school when he was accused of plagiarizing several pages of a paper that lacked proper citation. Biden defended the law school incident, saying it wasn't a “malevolent” error and that he misunderstood how to cite sources in his early law school career.

Having lost control of the narrative of his candidacy, Biden withdrew from the race in September of 1987 and focused his efforts on his role as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was in the process of considering the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice at the time.

2004
In 2004, though John Kerry was widely considered to be the Democratic front-runner as the cycle heated up, Biden again considered entering the race. But by August of 2003, he decided against the prospect, saying that his late entry into the race would have been “too much of a long shot.”

"At this late date, everything would have to fall perfectly into place and I would have to put on hold what influence I have in the United States Senate in pursuit of what is now too much of a long shot," Biden said.

2008
But on the same day that Biden launched his campaign in January of 2007, he spent much of the day trying to clear up a gaffe, after he described then-rival Obama as the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” during an interview with the New York Observer.

After the early stumble, Biden's campaign never managed to gain major momentum. After finishing in fifth place in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses in January of 2008, Biden pulled out from the contest. He would go on to rejoin the race seven months later as Obama's running mate.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/happened-times-joe-biden-deciding-run-president/story?id=34605046

[Thekaspervote]

28. You are entitled to your opinion. Seems at least right now the polls don't reflect that

[Kind of Blue]

31. I don't need your permission. It's a given that I'm entitled to my opinion.

[Kind of Blue]

32. Thanks for reminding me that I must spread far and wide.

Haven't finished reading because of her last jump and I thought was a given but...

Biden, Harris in virtual tie after dramatic shift in black support, poll shows

Sen. Kamala Harris of California has catapulted into a virtual tie with former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination — and she'smade significant inroads with black voters — following her widely praised debate performance last week, a new national poll released Tuesday showed.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters showed Biden with 22 percent support and Harris with 20 percent — a double-digit jump for her since the university's previous poll last month.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont were in third and fourth place in the poll, with 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, was in fifth, with 4 percent support.

No other candidate got more than 3 percent in the poll.

Biden's 2 percentage point lead over Harris was within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

"Round 1 of the Democratic debates puts Senator Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden on two different trajectories, as support for Harris surges but continues to slip for Biden," Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Mary Snow said in a statement. "Biden's once-commanding lead has evaporated," she added.

The poll, conducted June 28 to July 1, also showed that Harris had caught up with Biden in receiving support from black Democratic voters — a bloc with which Biden has done well.

In the latest poll, Biden's support among black Democratic voters shrunk to 31 percent from 48 percent in the June poll. Harris, on the other hand, saw her support among black Democratic voters grow to 27 percent, from 11 percent in the June poll. The June poll numbers on African American voters were provided to NBC by Quinnipiac.

The poll suggests a substantial upswing for Harris and a notable decline for the former vice president. In the Quinnipiac's poll of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters last month, Biden received the support of 30 percent of the respondents, while Sanders had 19 percent, Warren had 15 percent and Buttigieg had 8 percent.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/joe-biden-kamala-harris-virtual-tie-democratic-nomination-new-poll-n1025656

[John Fante]

35. Biden was on the fucking side of who?!

[Kind of Blue]

36. I don't understand your question but I guess it's his own side.

[gldstwmn]

23. +1000

[DesertRat]

4. Who is "they"? nt

[Vegas Roller]

6. See my response above :) nt

[mcar]

17. Who did that?

[Kind of Blue]

19. Unfortunately his record painted him as such

because he had nothing else to offer PoC then and now on desegregation and that's why Harris is gaining among African-Americans as they get to know her.

If only part of the reason for dropping out of his 1988 presidential bid was not based on one of his lies including marching for civil rights. He can't have it both ways as a liberal segregationist.

[Thekaspervote]

30. Biden's support among AA voters increased by 18% post debate

It’s in the comments below post #46

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287177473

[Kind of Blue]

34. Not so fast. Biden, Harris in virtual tie after dramatic shift in black support

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/joe-biden-kamala-harris-virtual-tie-democratic-nomination-new-poll-n1025656

[Thekaspervote]

37. She has to do well in SC the bellwether for the AA vote

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/south-carolina/ Was updated just today

[Kind of Blue]

38. Thanks for the link. I'm watching her ground game there.

Five good endorsements and all of them placed strategically around the state since at least late March/early April.

"All five Harris backers will serve as co-chairs of her campaign in the state, something that the campaign said shows her ability to appeal to a base that’s diverse in geography, age and ethnicity."

And in Iowa Kamala Harris surges into virtual tie with Joe Biden — leads with Latinos and second in Iowa

A separate poll of Iowa voters shows Harris riding the momentum from the debates into second place among Democrats, only trailing Biden.

Same article

Meanwhile, Harris jumped into the lead in a new poll of Latino Democrats, with her support soaring from just 6% to 22%. Julian Castro, the only Latino in the race, also saw his support jump to 19% after a strong debate perfomance. Biden slumped to 16% along with Sanders.

https://blackvoicenews.com/2019/04/07/kamala-harris-lands-diverse-endorsements-in-south-carolina/

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-kamala-harris-poll-iowa-latino-20190702-g7prhg437bdzdofhqbd3hjcn7i-story.html

https://www.univision.com/univision-news/politics/harris-and-castro-rise-among-hispanics-after-the-first-democratic-debate

[DesertRat]

45. That's true. Thanks for the link

[gldstwmn]

22. He painted himself. I don't think that

masterpiece is finished yet.

[Rene]

15. Harris' crack was nasty to fellow Dems...and she thought she was too cute

With her prepared dig about food. She’s definitely off my list for consideration.

[gldstwmn]

25. I'm a lifelong Democrat who

was fine with all of that. She will handle Trump just fine.

[MustLoveBeagles]

26. And mine