If former President Donald Trump wins Georgia for the first time since 2016, it’ll be because he succeeded in getting a key demographic to come out for him during ongoing early voting and on Election Day.
That’s what an East Carolina University poll shows, with more than one in five black men in the Peach State down with the Donald.
Twenty-two percent of the group backs Trump, with Democrat Kamala Harris at 74% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 4%.
In the race for 16 critical electoral votes, Trump leads Harris overall by 3 points, 49% to 46%.
This poll of 701 registered voters between Oct. 9 and 14 validates Trump’s plays to black men — overtures seldom seen in Republican politics in decades yet poised in the homestretch to potentially swing Georgia and other battlegrounds.
From savvy podcast appearances to barbershop visits, the former president has made his case to black men. And that could lead to an overperformance, especially as the veep appears to be failing to close the sale as Georgians cast their ballots.
The former president is also well ahead of Harris with white men, despite the efforts of groups like White Dudes for Harris. Seven in 10 support him, with Harris taking a quarter of the total, and the remaining 5% undecided or writing in a no-hope option.
Trump’s standing with black men far exceeds black women’s estimation of him. With female voters, he is mired at 5%, with Jill Stein at 2% and Harris dominating with 88% support.
He’s above water with white women, but not to the levels he’s at with males, leading 63% to 34%.
And the concerns most important to Georgia voters during the campaign’s final weeks play to the former president’s strengths.
More than a third of voters (34%) prioritize immigration and border security, issues the Joe Biden White House have bungled, with the border czar making news on her belated trip to the U.S-Mexico boundary with the jewelry she wore rather than any material change she would bring to stem the tide of illegal immigration her administration unleashed.
A quarter of voters rank the economy their top priority, which suggests financial anxiety drives a subset of voters amid a post-pandemic currency devaluation and the selective cronyist redistributionism of Bidenomics.
Another 11.5% of voters see crime as the major issue. As with the border blues and the wallet woes, public safety presents a pathetic portent for the “prosecutor’s” message, particularly amid rampant reports of migrant-crime rampages in major cities from sea to shining sea.
