Star Parker: Will More Blacks Vote Republican?
As we churn through primary season, laying the framework for November’s elections, we’re seeing the emergence of a new face of the Democratic Party — more progressive, more left wing.
The Democratic Party is delivering more candidates around the nation like Stacey Abrams, recently nominated for governor of Georgia. She’s unabashedly boilerplate, in-your-face and hard left. She’s pro-big government, pro-abortion and pro-LGBT rights.
Recent Wall Street Journal/NBC polling shows how the Democratic Party has changed. In 2004, 67 percent of Democrats identified as moderate or conservative and 31 percent identified as liberal. In 2018, we see a shift to the left of 20 points. Forty-seven percent identify as moderate or conservative and 51 percent as liberal.
Amidst all this, what might we expect from African-Americans, Democrats’ most consistent voting bloc? In 14 presidential elections since 1964, Democrat candidates captured an average 88 percent of the black vote. But blacks generally don’t fit the new far-left profile.
According to recent data from the Pew Research Center, black Democrats have very little religiously in common with white Democrats. Religious behavior of black Democrats is much more closely aligned with white Republicans.
Forty-seven percent of black Democrats say they attend church at least weekly, compared to 45 percent of white Republicans and 22 percent of white Democrats.
Ninety-two percent of black Protestants say they believe in God as described in the Bible, compared to 70 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Democrats.
But it’s not just religious attitudes that raise questions about black monolithic affinity for the Democratic Party.
In the Pew Religious Landscape study published in 2014, 36 percent of historically black Protestants described themselves as conservative and 24 percent as liberal.
Regarding the role of government, 23 percent of historically black Protestants say they prefer smaller government and fewer services and 70 percent say they prefer larger government and more services.
Regarding government aid to the poor, 27 percent of historically black Protestants said government does more harm than good and 66 percent said government does more good than harm.
You might say that these responses regarding the role of government explain why blacks vote disproportionately for Democrats.
But that’s not correct.
The data reported above is for what Pew defined as “historically black protestant” — which, according to Pew, consists of 53 percent of all blacks. However, according to Pew, 79 percent of blacks identify as Christian.
Pew reported in addition to 47 percent of all black Democrats saying they attend church at least once per week, 74 percent say they pray daily, and 76 percent say religion is “very important” in their lives.
So data that Pew reported for historically black Protestants seems to be a reasonably rough sample of black attitudes in general.
When 36 percent identify as conservative, and when 27 percent say government assistance to the poor does more harm than good, yet on average, 88 percent of blacks are voting for Democrats, something is amiss.
Voting Democrat is not written in black genes. From 1936 to 1960, the black vote for the Republican presidential candidate averaged 30 percent. In 1956, 39 percent of blacks voted for Dwight Eisenhower.
Black voting behavior has far-reaching implications, as America changes demographically into a country less and less white. In 1980, 88 percent of voters were white. In 2016, 70 percent were. This trend will continue.
In a new Harvard-Harris Poll, 33 percent of blacks say they are now “better off” in their financial situation and 32 percent of blacks approve of the way President Donald Trump is handling the economy.
Republican Party outreach to blacks has ratcheted up considerably since the Obama years.
If Republicans can succeed in courting these church-going black Christians, we could see a political realignment in the country that will change profoundly America’s political landscape.
Star Parker is well-known black conservative activist. A nationally syndicated columnist, Parker is the author of several books and a regular commentator on national television and radio networks including the BBC, EWTN and Fox News. She is also the founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy institute that promotes market-based solutions to fight poverty.
A version of this Op-Ed previously appeared on StarParker.com.
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