https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/18/could-
The provocative Donald Trump certainly seems to be disliked by a majority of African-American professional athletes, cable news hosts, academics and the Congressional Black Caucus. Yet there are subtle but increasing indications that his approval among other African-Americans may be reaching historic highs for a modern Republican president.
Some polls have indicated that Trump’s approval rating among black voters is close to 20 percent. That is far higher than the 8 percent of the African-American vote that Trump received on Election Day 2016.
A recent, admittedly controversial Rasmussen Reports poll showed African-American approval of Trump at 36 percent.
Even 20 percent African-American support for Trump would all but dismantle Democratic Party presidential hopes for 2020. Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election with 88 percent of the black vote. That was about a six-point falloff from Barack Obama’s share of the black vote in 2012.
But far more importantly, an estimated 2 million of the African-American voters who cast ballots for Obama in 2012 simply did not show up at the polls in 2016 to vote for the off-putting Clinton.
Even a small drop in African-American turnout or anything less than the usual 85 percent to 90 percent supermajority for a Democratic presidential candidate on Election Day can prove fatal. Why?
Republican presidential candidates now routinely win 55 percent to 60 percent of the so-called white vote, and about 70 percent of voters are white. That lopsided margin may widen further, given that progressive Democrats are not making any effort to recapture turned-off white working-class voters.
With continually diminishing white support, Democrats must increasingly count on massive minority turnout and bloc voting—especially among African-American voters, who make up about 12 percent of the electorate.