GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney is scheduled to address the 103rd NAACP National Convention today in Houstaon, Texas. The topic? Civic engagement. President Obama was invited to speak at the convention yesterday but had a previously scheduled campaign event to attend instead.
This is a great opportunity for Romney. Although African-Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic and 95 percent of the demographic voted for President Obama in 2008, their support for Obama over the course of the past four years has decreased while unemployment in the community sits around 14 percent, much higher than the national rate.
Five months ago, 83 percent of African Americans held “strongly favorable” views of Obama, but in a new Washington Post-ABC news poll that number has dropped to 58 percent. That drop is similar to slipping support for Obama among all groups.
“There is a certain amount of racial loyalty and party loyalty, but eventually that was going to have to weaken,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, who studies African Americans. “It’s understandable given the economy.”