Black voters could tip Florida for Joe Biden

Democrats and Republicans agree on a key strategic question in the final days of the Joe Biden-Donald Trump presidential race: The winner could depend on how many Black voters are energized by Biden.

How important are Florida’s African American and Caribbean American voters?

Running behind schedule, Biden went ahead with the unpublicized but strategically important visit Thursday to Sistrunk Boulevard, the historic main street of the Black community in northwest Fort Lauderdale. He made the stop even though his plane was waiting to take him to a rally in Tampa.

On the final Saturday of the campaign, when time is the candidates' most precious commodity, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris will make stops in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. A central mission of the first Black candidate on a major party ticket is ginning up Black voter turnout on the final week of early voting.

Increasing turnout

There’s no doubt the overwhelming majority of Black voters will cast ballots for Biden. Public opinion polls and political strategists figure he’ll get the votes from about nine out of every 10 Black voters.

“The vast majority will vote for Biden. I don’t have a doubt about that," said Rudy Jean-Bart, a professor of American history and African American history at Broward College. "For many, it’s more about Donald Trump than Joe Biden. I think people of color, Black people in particular, are frightened by the prospect of another four years of Donald Trump.”

Support in polls doesn’t count for anything if voters don’t vote. The imperative for Biden is getting as many African Americans and Caribbean Americans to cast ballots. Democrats hope to replicate 2008 and 2012, when Black voters turned out heavily for Barack Obama -- and avoid a repeat of 2016, when there was less enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton.

In 2016, the Black share of the vote in Florida was 12.9%. In 2008 and 2012, it was 13.5%, said Steve Schale, who led Obama’s winning Florida campaigns in 2008 and 2012. This year, he’s executive director of Unite the Country, a pro-Biden super PAC. Even a relatively small sliver of votes can make a big difference in a state like Florida, which has a history of exceeding close elections — and where polling shows a neck-and-neck contest between Biden and Trump.

Broward Mayor Dale Holness said if Black turnout in South Florida, especially in Broward County, his Obama levels, Biden will win the state. "If we don’t push to turn out the vote for Biden-Harris the way we did in the past, then we won’t make it.”

Strategies

The Biden campaign is using multiple ways to reach Black voters:

Many Biden and Harris stops in South Florida have been in cities with large African American and Caribbean American populations.

The campaign has tailored advertising messages in in print, digital, radio and television advertising, including ads in Black community newspapers and radio stations and Creole language broadcast media.

The candidates and a range of political and entertainment surrogates have made themselves available to Black media outlets and along the campaign trail.

On Thursday, the Miami Heat’s Udonis Haslem was among the NBA stars who delivered warm up remarks at Biden’s drive-in rally in Coconut Creek, appeared with him at the Sistrunk Boulevard shop, and visited early voting sites in Miami-Dade County.

“I don’t know everything about politics, but I kind of know something about winning championships and the team and what coming together can do,” Haslem said. “Tell a friend. Get together a plan. Tell a cousin, tell an uncle. I’m getting together all my homeboys, everybody I know. They’re voting. We’re gonna make it happen.”

Last weekend, the rapper, actor and writer Common did several events in the state on behalf of Biden.

Common joined state Rep. Shevrin Jones and state Sen. Perry Thurston to tout Biden at the Dillon’s Image barber shop in Lauderhill, a Black community hub.

Independent groups that support Biden have also worked in African American and Caribbean American communities in Florida. Former state Sen. Chris Smith and and state Sen. Perry Thurston have organized an effort that has had about 50 people going out every evening in teams to knock on doors of non-voters in Black neighborhoods.

Challenges

Biden faces some headwinds.

Before the pandemic, candidates and big-name supporters could go to larger gathering in barber shops and what was an essential stop for Democratic candidates: the iconic Betty’s Soul Food Restaurant on Sistrunk Boulevard, Smith said. Now, those those events often depend on social media to spread the message. Case in point: 11 people were present at the Common-Jones-Thurston event.

Some of the biggest mobilization efforts for Black voters have been “Souls to the Polls” events on the two Sundays before Election Day. From their pulpits, pastors would encourage people to head directly from church to early voting centers, said Smith, who’s organized multiple Souls events. When he was vice president, Biden headlined a rally just before a Fort Lauderdale Souls to the Polls event the Sunday before Election Day in 2014.

Those events are continuing this year, but they’re much different because of the pandemic. “Not having that word from the pulpit and not being physically out of your house already, I think that’s going to hurt," Smith said. Koinonia Worship Center in South Broward, where Jones' father Eric Jones is senior pastor, is not operating at full capacity. Jones said there’s no question his father would urge worshipers on Sunday to vote if they haven’t already done so.

Not one-size-fits-all

One message or strategy isn’t enough for a candidate to win support from Black voters, said Jean-Bart. “Black people are not a monolith,” he said.

“What gets lost are ethnic nuances. To have a Caribbean background is different from an African American background and different than an African background.” Jean-Bart said age also gives people somewhat different political outlooks. Religion plays a big role for many older Black voters, some of whom are culturally conservative. Many of his young, Black students wanted a more progressive candidate than Biden.

Black women are among the most reliable voters, turning out heavily in most elections. Black men don’t turn out as much. That’s part of the reason Jones and other Black elected Democrats have organized efforts aimed at encouraging Black men to vote.

Regina Powell, a Deerfield Beach Democrat, said it’s imperative to do more to encourage Black men to vote. If they do vote, she said, Biden would benefit. “As an African American woman, I feel he [Biden] needs to get to our men,” she said.

Many Caribbean Americans are excited about Harris, whose father is a Jamaican immigrant, said Miramar Commissioner Alexandra Davis, who wore a “Caribbean Americans for Biden-Harris” to a Biden rally in her city, which has a large Jamaican population. “We’re so energized. Kamala Harris is one of us. We’re going to turn out our base,” Davis said.

Trump supporters

Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, said Trump would get a higher number and larger percentage of Black voters than most people expect.

“We’ve had four years of President Trump, who has made real, significant improvements in criminal justice reform, reducing unemployment, creating jobs,” Barnett said. “Black people are feeling these results and I think they are going to respond at the voting booth.”

He said the Biden campaign “must be scared and embarrassed.” Sending Harris to South Florida – whom he termed the “very unpopular and disliked vice presidential candidate” – is “too little, too late for the Democrats.”

The location for Trump’s final Florida campaign rally is an airport in Opa-locka, a city with a large Black population, although the Sunday night event isn’t a direct play for Black voters, few of whom show up at the president’s rallies.

Trump has touted celebrity endorsements of his own, most recently from Lil Wayne, who met with the president on Thursday at the Trump National Golf resort in Doral.

The rapper, who was a contestant on Trump’s old TV show “Celebrity Apprentice,” wrote on Twitter that they’d had a great meeting, including discussions of criminal justice reform and Trump’s “platinum plan” for Black Americans. “He listened to what we had to say today and assured he will and can get it done.”

Barnett said he expects Trump to receive greater support from Black voters than “than any other Republican president in history,” adding that “I think it’s going to be the Black vote that does it for President Trump.”

Biden case

Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of the BlackPAC super political action committee, said in a video news conference this week that a “three pronged crisis facing Black communities” is mobilizing voters for Biden. She cited Covid-19 1/4 u2032s health impacts, which are disproportionately high among Black people, the economic implications of the pandemic, and the nationwide reckoning over systemic racism and violence perpetuated against Black people by law enforcement.

All of those factors are “being amplified by the president of the United States, and that is motivating for Black voters.”

Barbara Williamson, a Democratic Party committeewoman from Fort Lauderdale, was more direct. Although she’s nervous about the outcome, she said Black voters have to vote for Biden. "We have no choice. Four more years of Donald Trump will just destroy America.”

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics

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