In a turn of events which took many by surprise, initial indications show that President Donald Trump may have done fairly well with minority voters in this week’s election.
Although Trump is on track to lose the election to challenger Joe Biden, his Republican Party will be heartened by its performance among minorities, especially among Hispanic voters.
In Florida, a state Trump won in 2016 and 2020, his share increased from 35% to 50%. He also saw his share of the Hispanic vote go up in other key battleground states such as Georgia and Ohio. In the south-west of the country the picture was slightly different, with Biden outpolling Trump in Arizona. Arizona seems to be plumping for Biden, the first time it will vote for a Democrat since 1996, when it chose Bill Clinton over Bob Dole.
Although Biden still easily won the majority of the vote of African-Americans, his performance was sharply down amongst black men in particular, especially compared to how Barack Obama had performed with that group. It is estimated that up to 95% of black men voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but only 80% voted for Biden in this year’s election.
In a twist which may surprise many on the left who hold up white people (especially men) as the root of many of the globe’s evils, Biden’s win was probably thanks to increased support from white people, compared to the 2016 result. Trump still won that demographic but with a smaller margin than in 2016. Early analysis shows that white people without tertiary education supported Trump over Biden by a margin of 16 percentage points. However, in 2016 he had carried this group over Hillary Clinton by 28 percentage points.