Odds Not in Biden’s Favor

If Georgia is decisive in the 2024 election, the outlook for President Biden’s re-election appears dire. Biden has consistently trailed in Georgia surveys for the past year – in some polls by double digits – and we’re entering the season of the election cycle when big comebacks seem as unlikely as winning the Super Bowl when down 28-3 in the third quarter: It’s possible, but the odds are against it.

A spring poll by The New York Times, not known as a cheerleader for the Trump campaign, found the Republican up 10 points. That’s a gigantic swing in a state where Biden squeaked out a 2020 win in a statistical dead heat. It’s even more surprising when considering that the state has continued to grow and add many new minority – traditionally Democratic – voters to the rolls over the past four years.

One secret to Biden’s success in the last election here was his strong performance in Metro Atlanta with white, college-educated voters, a group that used to be the most reliably Republican in the country. He continues to do just fine with that demographic. The Times poll showed 38% of those voters support Biden, as compared to only 26% among white voters overall.

It’s Biden’s numbers with Black voters, however, that have Democrats terrified. To win in Georgia, Democrats need to get at least 90% of the Black vote and 30% of the white vote. Over two decades, Democrats have consistently gotten the former but rarely achieved the latter.

The Times poll showed Biden getting an abysmal 66% of Black voters, former President Trump getting 20% and the rest saying they didn’t know yet.

Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, is a Georgia native from Schley County who ran Georgia’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election campaign. Fulks told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “I don’t put stock in polls that are noisy and inconsistent, especially on the national level.”

The problem with that analysis is that the only “inconsistency” is the size of Trump’s lead. Sometimes it’s double digits; sometimes it’s less than that.] But it’s “consistently” outside the margin of error.

The Biden campaign’s actions belie their words. If Biden’s team thought they were getting 90% of Black voters like they did last time, they’d turn their attention to wooing a bigger percentage of highly educated white voters. Instead, they’ve had a single-minded focus on Black Georgians.

When Biden’s campaign opened its first Georgia field office in Savannah, the Coastal Georgia news site The Current called it “an effort to retain the Black voter base that won the 2020 presidential election.” Savannah’s Democratic mayor, Van Johnson, affirmed that when he told the crowd: “Don’t get caught up in the hype that President Biden hasn’t delivered for Black Americans and Black Georgians. He has.”

Vice President Kamala Harris has come to Atlanta so often she might need to start paying income taxes here (which would save the Californian a lot of money, actually). Fox 5 Atlanta’s headline of her April visit reported she promoted “DEI, Black economic opportunity.” The next week second gentleman Doug Emhoff came to our capital city to visit Black-owned businesses.

Then the leader of the free world himself arrived to deliver the commencement address at Morehouse College. Biden’s rhetoric that week signaled panic. He told a Black radio station in Atlanta that “Trump hurt Black people every chance he got.” His graduation speech recycled the canard that Georgia’s ban on handing out water bottles within 150 feet of polling places on Election Day represents some kind of human rights abuse. A few years ago, he absurdly called Georgia’s 2021 election law “Jim Crow 2.0,” and Georgians responded with a collective eye roll. He failed to learn this lesson: Georgians, regardless of race, won’t swallow political talking points that don’t square with their lived experiences.

As we get closer to November, these polling numbers for Black voters will change. Some who expressed support for Trump in polls will begin to feel better about the economy and revert back to the Democrats. Some will not vote at all. Few, if any, Republicans believe that Black voters will go from voting 90% for Biden in 2020 to less than 80% in 2024. But if Trump just gets anywhere near 20% of the Black vote, as we’re seeing in polling, he’ll win Georgia comfortably.

Georgians know better than to count out a fourth quarter comeback from far behind. But while Joe Biden might consider himself a patriot, he’s no Tom Brady.

Brian Robinson is co-host of WABE’s Political Breakfast podcast and a regular panelist on the Georgia Gang.

This column was written prior to President Biden dropping out of the 2024 Presidential Race.