The choice for Black Americans is not just a question of which party holds power in Washington and in the states, but how that power is used, and whether they believe it moves the country forward or backward.
Slippage among any of these groups of voters could reverse Democrats’ gains of the past four years — upending the balance of power in Washington, blunting Biden’s legislative agenda in the next two years of his presidency, and shifting power in states that will be at the center of the 2024 presidential election.
“Is this truly my country?” she responded. “Can I fly red, white and blue, or is red, white and blue inherently considered a racist flag? It’s very nerve-racking. … It’s very much a sense of wanting to belong but knowing that you’ll never belong. That’s how it feels to be Black in America.” Those comments reflected the derision many other Black voters have for the Republican nominee for Senate. “The idea that Herschel Walker is a qualified candidate for the U.S. Senate, that is the biggest joke of the century,” said Penny Poole, 64, president of the Gwinnett County chapter of the NAACP. “[Republicans] know it, but they would rather have an ignorant Black man who they can puppeteer than someone who would actually make good decisions for the country.
The Warnock-Walker race remains one of the most competitive in the country. If Warnock wins reelection, Republicans who promoted Walker’s candidacy — Trump was his leading advocate — may conclude they made a miscalculation. A Walker win in the Georgia Senate race would underscore that party allegiance in a time of polarized politics can overcome glaring weaknesses of a candidate.
Four years ago, Abrams claimed voter suppression at the hands of Kemp, then the secretary of state, and declined to concede. Some strategists said privately that this might have made her a more polarizing figure in the state. Her support among Black voters in Georgia remains strong, though a recent poll for theshowed her current level of support among Black voters slightly below that of four years ago.
Haynes admires Abrams but worries about the state of the race. “It really should not be a competition,” she said. “Kemp does not have a fourth of the credentials that Stacey Abrams has.” But she went on to say, “In our state, and I think that’s usually the case for most places, the incumbent doesn’t have to fight that hard as long as the state isn’t in total upheaval. We’re not in total upheaval quite honestly, on the surface, we’re not. So that concerns me.
Muldrow doesn’t spare his party from criticism. He noted that as Gwinnett County was diversifying, local Republicans did not recruit candidates who fit the changing demographics. “What you’re seeing right now is it didn’t work …” he said, “So now you got to try to play catch-up.”‘The hammer in our toolbox’Most Black Americans interviewed in Georgia see no home for themselves in the Republican Party and haven’t for decades, though they see the party of Trump as especially inhospitable.
Today he is an admirer of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. In 2020, Morrell declined to vote for either Trump or Biden. “I didn’t want to be a part of Biden’s legacy because I knew his policy history, so I didn’t want to be a part of that. But I also feared Trump’s potential because of his history. So I didn’t want to be a part of that.
Cole described his political philosophy as “help people, lots of them, especially ones you don’t always agree with,” “All the things that people have talked about for the last 40 years, trying to explain in general why women are more likely to be Democratic and Republican, may also apply in African American communities as well,” said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University.
As the conversation about Trump and Black men continued, Belcher’s tone suddenly shifted, and he began to talk in personal terms. “Taking off my hat as a social scientist and having my hat on as a Black man,” he said, “I’ve become very suspect at why this has been something that is used in a negative way to attack Black men.... The Black man is somehow attacked … as a political problem.”
For many Black Americans, the 2022 election is not just a moment of choice and decision; it is part of a continuum that dates back more than a decade, a period in which they have seen the country change. Some of those changes have been good, but others have generated feelings of anxiety and anger. “Being a bully somehow became equated with somehow being strong, and standing up to bullies got equated with being woke.”State Rep. Jasmine Clark canvasses door to door in Lilburn, Ga., in late October, encouraging residents to vote.
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