Obama Concerned Black Vote Is ‘Not As Solid As It Needs To Be’
This election season has been particularly difficult for black voters. On one side we have Trump – no clarification needed – and on the other we have Hillary Clinton, who has her own history of dismissing black voices. Understandably, many of us feel that we’re stuck between a rock that intends to crush us and a hard place that doesn’t want to accommodate us.
Given that there’s less than a week before the election, you can already hear whispers of whose fault it’ll be if it doesn’t go the right way. In other words, concerns over black voter turnout are starting to make their rounds.
While appearing on “The Tom Joyner Morning Show” on Tuesday, President Barack Obama expressed that he feels the black vote is “not as solid as it needs to be,” according to Politico.
“I’m going to be honest with you right now, because we track, we’ve got early voting, we’ve got all kinds of metrics to see what’s going on, and right now, the Latino vote is up. Overall vote is up. But the African-American vote right now is not as solid as it needs to be,” Obama said.
To be fair, based on early voter numbers, black voter turnout is lower than it was during the past election. It’s reportedly down a whole 16 percent, compared to white voter turnout increasing by 15.
This isn’t really the time to blame black voters for a lack of motivation when they have legitimate claims that neither candidate really has their best interests at heart. Especially given that our GenForward survey has hard data that shows that most young people of color plan to vote for Hillary Clinton, compared to young white voters.
Maybe Trevor Noah’s joke that Hillary’s “living the black experience” is the answer and people will show up to the polls in droves.