Vice President Kamala Harris still holds a wide lead over former President Donald Trump among black voters in battleground states, a new poll shows, showing that a significant share of undecided black voters are still undecided to take over the presidential elections.
Findings from a Howard University Initiative on Public Opinion poll of 981 likely black voters in battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — show that 84% of likely black voters will vote for Harris in November and November will support. 8% say they will support Trump. Another 8% have not yet made a decision.
The results are largely within the margin of error of the previous edition of the September survey, although they show a slight deviation for Trump. The September poll showed Harris at 82% (2 points lower than now), Trump’s support at 12% (up 4 points) and 6% undecided or in favor of another candidate.
A whopping 66% of Black voters say they are very excited to vote for president in November, including 35% who still haven’t decided who they will vote for.
While an overwhelming majority of Black voters overall plan to support Harris, the data shows a small shift among independents from a month ago.
Self-identified Democrats and Republicans (including independents who lean toward either party) remained consistent in their support for Harris and Trump. Support for Trump among independent black voters stands at a significant 18%, up from 12% in September.
The share of independents who say they are not yet sure has also increased since September: 26% compared to 20%.
It is worth noting that the field dates were September 4-11, so most respondents were interviewed before the September 10 debate.
But while some demographic subgroups are slightly less likely to say they will vote for Harris in the new poll, Trump’s numbers among those groups in the head-to-head race have not changed. Why? Those voters change and say they are undecided.
Gender and Age Differences: Young black men are likely to support Trump
The latest polls show Harris leading Trump by 81 points among black women, but only 59 points among black men. The same proportion of men and women – 10% – say they have not yet made a decision.
Black voters support Harris by wide margins across all age groups, but her margin among young voters (63 points) is much smaller than her margin among older voters (82 points).
Trump received 21% support among black men under 50, while Harris had 68% support – a relatively small margin for Harris at +47 points. Another 11% have not yet made a decision.
Harris holds her own among young black women, with a 75-point lead, but 12% are still undecided.
Gender gap on the issues
Fully 22% of black voters said democracy/voting rights/elections are the most important issue to them in their vote for president. Another 19% chose economy/jobs/wages, 16% said abortion/women’s health care/women’s rights and 10% said inflation/cost of living.
There are major differences by gender.
Black men cited democracy and the economy as the top issues to vote on (22% support for each), followed by “others” (13%), and inflation (9%), honesty/integrity/character (7%) , and abortion and anti-Trump rhetoric (6% each).
Black women cited abortion as the most important issue (21%) when voting, closely followed by democracy (19%) and the economy (18%).
Across all gender groups, by partisanship and age, abortion was not in the top five issues for men, and anti-Trump rhetoric was not in the top five issues for women.
Among undecided Black voters, 19% said the economy is the most important issue for their vote, followed by inflation/cost of living (14%).
The Howard Initiative on Public Opinion designed and administered the multimodal survey of 981 likely voters who self-identified as African American or Black and indicated they were registered to vote in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin . The survey was conducted from October 2 to 8 via text-to-web online surveys and telephone (landline and mobile) interviews. The margin of error for likely voters is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
