Trump wants Black, Latino votes but lacks popularity among both groups

As he prepares to accept the Republican nomination for the third time, Donald Trump has promised new efforts to expand his coalition - and, in particular, to win over more of the nonwhite voters who largely rejected him during the 2020 election.

But an AP analysis of two consecutive polls conducted in June by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that about 7 in 10 Black Americans have a somewhat or very unfavourable view of Trump, as do about half of Hispanic Americans. While both groups do see Trump a little more favourably than when he left office in 2021, their opinion of him is still more negative than positive.

 

Any gains in support among Black or Hispanic Americans would be helpful for Trump, who won 35 per cent of Hispanic voters and 8 per cent of Black voters in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, and has struggled to grow his appeal beyond his base. He's hoping, in part, to capitalize on frustration with his opponent, since President Joe Biden's favorability among Black and Hispanic Americans has also fallen since 2021. It's not clear, though, that Biden's loss of enthusiasm among Black and Hispanic adults is helping Trump's own standing among these groups.

Views of Trump are remarkably stable

Most Americans have a negative view of Trump, according to the AP-NORC analysis, which combined two polls conducted close together to yield a bigger sample size. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults have a very or somewhat unfavourable opinion of him, while about 4 in 10 have a favourable opinion. Overall views of Trump were similar in January and July 2021, too, in the months after Biden took office.

Views of Trump are generally very stable - even a felony conviction didn't change how Americans see him. After he was convicted in May of 34 felony counts in New York for falsifying business documents, polls from the AP-NORC Center found that overall views of Trump barely budged. During the Trump presidency, Gallup polls found that Trump's average job approval rating was 41 per cent, and it never exceeded 50 per cent.
 

 

About half of Hispanic adults view Trump negatively

Trump has said on the campaign trail that he has great support from Hispanic communities. But the AP analysis found that about half of Hispanic adults have an unfavourable view of Trump. About 4 in 10 Hispanic adults in the recent AP-NORC polls see Trump positively, up from about 3 in 10 in January 2021.

And even though Trump's campaign advisers have said he has specific appeal among Hispanic men and younger Hispanic adults because of his business focus, that's not what the poll analysis shows. Current views of Trump are similar among Hispanic men and women, older and younger Hispanic adults, and those with and without a college degree.

Biden, too, is facing a perception problem among this group. The new analysis found that about half of Hispanic adults have an unfavourable view of him, while about 4 in 10 have a favourable view. That's a substantial decline from early 2021, when about 6 in 10 Hispanic Americans saw Biden positively.

Trump remains unpopular among Black adults

The Trump campaign has claimed that he could perform better among Black adults this year than in 2020, speculating that his legal woes could endear him to a community that has faced systematic discrimination by the criminal justice system, and that his immigration policies could also hold appeal.

Black adults continue to have broadly negatively views of Trump, however: About 7 in 10 Black adults have an unfavorable view of Trump, a decrease of about 20 percentage points since early 2021. And although the Trump campaign has said Black men may be more receptive to his message, Black men and women have similar views of him.

Younger Black Americans might be a little more open to Trump's appeals. About one-third of Black younger adults - those under 45 - see him positively, compared to around 1 in 10 Black adults who are 45 or older. But most younger Black adults view him unfavourably.

About 6 in 10 Black Americans, meanwhile, have a positive view of Biden - down from 8 in 10 when he took office.