Dem polling memo: Treat Black Americans like swing voters
Democrats are fretting about President Biden’s weaker numbers with Black voters. The new messaging shop Blueprint has a solution: Keep talking about his record until these voters hear about it.
In a new batch of polling, Blueprint found that Black voters, while overwhelmingly Democratic, have priorities and issue awareness much closer to swing voters. The vast majority want the president to bring down prices and raise wages, which the White House is already messaging; between 35% and 40% of Black voters aren’t aware of Biden policies designed to drive down drug prices and end junk fees, which are overwhelmingly popular.
“You don’t have to do some crazy targeted ad buy that only goes on conservative talk radio in swing counties in Wisconsin,” said Blueprint strategist Evan Roth Smith. “You can talk about these things everywhere, at the loudest possible volume. You can put the president on a podium in front of a pharmaceutical company headquarters, talking about bringing the prices down.”
Blueprint, whose first round of polling found that voters were more concerned with prices than unemployment, focused on a sample of 335 Black voters to get the new numbers. Another conclusion from their data: Black voters are more likely to consider the president “too liberal” than “too conservative.” That, said Roth Smith, should show Democrats that “we don’t have to force some big intraparty fight over who really matters to us.”
David’s view
The Biden campaign has already run economy-focused paid messages for Black voters, starting with a series of ads in September that talked about the president “lowering the cost of living, including health premiums, prescription drugs, and the cost of insulin.” Blueprint’s advice mirrors what most Democrats already think. What’s it not advising? Appeals to racial equity and justice that Biden ran on then implemented after the summer 2020 protests.
Democrats are fretting about President Biden’s weaker numbers with Black voters. The new messaging shop Blueprint has a solution: Keep talking about his record until these voters hear about it.
In a new batch of polling, Blueprint found that Black voters, while overwhelmingly Democratic, have priorities and issue awareness much closer to swing voters. The vast majority want the president to bring down prices and raise wages, which the White House is already messaging; between 35% and 40% of Black voters aren’t aware of Biden policies designed to drive down drug prices and end junk fees, which are overwhelmingly popular.
“You don’t have to do some crazy targeted ad buy that only goes on conservative talk radio in swing counties in Wisconsin,” said Blueprint strategist Evan Roth Smith. “You can talk about these things everywhere, at the loudest possible volume. You can put the president on a podium in front of a pharmaceutical company headquarters, talking about bringing the prices down.”
Blueprint, whose first round of polling found that voters were more concerned with prices than unemployment, focused on a sample of 335 Black voters to get the new numbers. Another conclusion from their data: Black voters are more likely to consider the president “too liberal” than “too conservative.” That, said Roth Smith, should show Democrats that “we don’t have to force some big intraparty fight over who really matters to us.”
David’s view
The Biden campaign has already run economy-focused paid messages for Black voters, starting with a series of ads in September that talked about the president “lowering the cost of living, including health premiums, prescription drugs, and the cost of insulin.” Blueprint’s advice mirrors what most Democrats already think. What’s it not advising? Appeals to racial equity and justice that Biden ran on then implemented after the summer 2020 protests.
