President Biden’s vaccine mandates for the private sector, healthcare workers, and federal employees are proving to be particularly unpopular for a key Democratic constituency: black voters.
According to a new Morning Consult survey, which was conducted Sept. 18-20, the president’s net approval rating among unvaccinated black voters tanked 17 points since a Sept. 6-8 survey, just before the mandates were announced.
Biden’s net approval rating—"the share who approve of his job performance minus the share who disapprove”—fell 12 percentage points among black voters during this same period.
The September erosion accounted for more than two-fifths of the decline in perceptions of Biden’s job performance to date among Black voters, providing a stark warning sign for Democrats ahead of next year’s midterms. While Black voters, who helped push Biden over the top against President Donald Trump in key states last year, are unlikely to abandon the Democratic Party en masse to back Republicans on the ballot next year, low turnout from the group could have dire consequences for Democrats in Congress, who already face an early enthusiasm gap.
Biden is still popular with most Black voters, with 71 percent of them approving of his job performance, including 37 percent who do so strongly. But since Sept. 8, the share who disapprove of Biden’s job performance has increased 7 points, to 24 percent, and 14 percent said they “strongly disapprove.”
The rise in negative views came almost entirely from unvaccinated Black voters: 38 percent of Black voters who say they have not received their vaccine disapprove of Biden’s job performance, up 11 points since before he announced the mandate, while 56 percent approve, down 6 points over that time frame. (Morning Consult)
The survey comes as Black Lives Matter is protesting New York City’s vaccine mandate, which requires patrons of most indoor establishments to show proof of vaccination. The requirement led to a fight at Carmine’s and then a protest earlier this week.
During the Monday protest, Chivona Newsome, a BLM co-founder, asked what will “stop the Gestapo, I mean the NYPD, from rounding up black people, from snatching them off the train, off the bus?”
She then vowed the city would see “another uprising” over the vaccine mandate.
“We’re putting this city on notice, that your mandate will not be another racist social-distance practice. Black people are not going to stand by, or you will see another uprising. And that is not a threat; that is a promise,” she said. “The vaccination passport is not a free passport to racism.”
Black Americans are the least likely among all racial and ethnic demographics to have received a Covid-19 vaccine.
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