President Joe Biden has come up with a new plan to gain back the votes of Black Americans as polls reveal he is losing ground with them.
During Biden’s visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Friday, the president announced a new way to bolster votes he desperately needs to secure the 2024 election.
The Department of Justice unveiled a proposal to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. If approved, this would reduce federal penalties related to marijuana possession.
The new change comes at a crucial time for Biden’s re-election chances. With the president trailing behind former President Donald Trump, the turnout of Black voters is crucial for Biden to secure another four years in office.
However, New York Times White House correspondent Zolan Kanno-Youngs claimed that Biden’s effort to reschedule marijuana to reduce criminal punishment will not be enough to secure him enough votes from Black Americans.
It’s early and we’re looking at polling here, but one, I can tell you that these numbers have the attention of …some of President Biden’s closest political advisers. They are worried about about this frustration thus far because this very much is the base of the party and in a way sort of scrambling for different policy achievements now that you can show that can energize not just voters in the black community, which is obviously not a monolith, but specifically young black voters as well. So that falls as the marijuana announcement definitely is an example of that.
Look, that’s essentially a proposed rule. It’s not going to take effect for a while. It’s like a long arduous process. The fact that the president put out a video with it yesterday, a week after the Justice Department sort of recommendation to the White House even shows just the urgency to really find something to energize these voters. But I do want to say too, look when we talk about young black voters, when we talk about voters in the black community, many of the concerns are the same that many American voters have. It‘s the economy, right? It’s frustrations around affordability. So just looking for sort of different announcements such as like a marijuana announcement is not going to suffice. Via the Daily Caller.
A recent New York Times/Siena poll found that Biden is losing Black voters to Trump.
The GOP hopeful is winning more than 20 percent of Black voters in the poll -- which, according to the NYT, would be the highest level of Black support for a Republican presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964.
In comparison, according to the Pew Research Center, 92 percent of Black voters voted for Biden in 2020, with only eight percent for Trump.
A poll conducted by The Wall Street Journal found that Trump’s support among Black men has spiked in seven battleground states to over 30 percent. This is double the support he received among this same group in 2020.
During Friday's speech, Biden attacked Trump for opposing his economic policies and his push for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
"My predecessor and his extreme MAGA friends are now going after diversity, equity, and inclusion all across America,” the president said. “They want a country for some, not for all.”
He also boasted about how his American Rescue Plan helped Black children thanks to the child tax credit. Biden went on to tout his administration's investment of $300 million to support diversity in schools and $16 billion for Black colleges and universities.