Poll: Black voter approval for Trump 41%

President Donald J. Trump walks from the White House Monday evening, June 1, 2020, to St. John's Episcopal Church, known as the church of Presidents, that was damaged by fire during demonstrations in nearby LaFayette Square Sunday evening. (Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead)

The conventional wisdom is that the racial turmoil of the past two weeks is damaging President Trump's support among blacks, but the latest Rasmussen poll of likely voters shows a remarkable 41% of blacks approve of his performance.

In the 2016 election, Trump won only 8% of the black vote, a typical figure for Republican candidates.

While some might view the survey by the "conservative" Rasmussen as an outlier, its finding in December of 34% approval among blacks was affirmed by an Emerson College poll that had it at 35%. And a Marist poll at the time found 33% of non-white voters in approval of the president.

On Jan. 31, as WND reported, Rasmussen's daily tracking poll found black voter approval of Trump's performance was 42%.

Meanwhile, polls on Trump's handling of the protests and the underlying racial issues from Emerson, CBS News Reuters/Ipsos and Monmouth University found most Americans disapprove.

Emerson, which conducted its poll after the controversial clearing of protesters before Trump's appearance at St. John's Episcopal Church on Monday, found 36% approve, 47% disapprove and 17% were neutral or had no opinion.

Overall, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll Friday found 48% of likely U.S. voters approve of Trump’s job performance while 51% disapprove.

Tim Scott: 'Unprecedented in my lifetime'

Black Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina praised Trump's work for the black community in an interview Tuesday, saying "the last three years of progress have been unprecedented in my lifetime."

Scott said there needs to be "a concrete conversation about the policies of Vice President Joe Biden versus the policies of President Trump."

"If we have that conversation, there will be a clear delineation about progress that has been made on behalf of of the most vulnerable communities in this country under President Trump, and some of the challenges that were inspired and enacted by Vice President Biden," he said. "So that would be a clear contrast and one that would be worthy of actual investment of time, energy to hear that debate."

Meanwhile, one of Biden’s key black supporters, Rep. James Clyburn – credited with rescuing the former VP's flailing campaign by endorsing him in South Carolina – said Tuesday he "cringed" at Biden's assertion a week ago that black voters "have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black."

Among Trump's accomplishments for blacks, Scott said, are permanent funding for historically black colleges and universities and the creation of 7 million jobs, two-thirds of which went to minorities and to women.

"We had an increase the labor force participation rate among African-Americans," Scott said. "Home ownership, I believe, was up by two points under this administration. Access to a quality education improved, help for sickle cell anemia secured under this president, so when you look at the actual accomplishments – put aside all of the vitriol, all of the rhetoric, all of the things that some may find distasteful – the actual policy positions have been incredibly concrete.

"And I would say this has been the best policy position of a president in my lifetime, and that's what I know from just personal experience and having watched this for the last 30 years of my life."

How does that translate to votes?

An analysis by the Washington Examiner in November showed Trump's dramatic rise in job approval among blacks could make the difference in the 2020 election.

Boosting his percentage among blacks in November to between 10% and 15% could be enough to put him over the top, said pollster Jonathan Zogby of Zogby Analytics at the time.

Zogby found at that time that Trump was receiving 12% of the black vote against Joe Biden, 14% against Sen. Bernie Sanders and 17% against Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Those levels are the best for a Republican president or presidential candidate since 1968.

New perspective

Senior Trump campaign official Katrina Pierson said in November that Trump's support among blacks is "going in the right direction."

Pierson noted Trump had respect in the black community long before he ran for president, with Don King and Jesse Jackson counted among his friends.

But when he ran for the presidency, she said, the Democrats smeared him as a "racist," and it has taken time to overcome that.

"He couldn't understand it at first, and it's very frustrating," said Pierson. "But it came with the baggage of running as a Republican.

"It went through a couple of years, during the campaign, where Trump's a racist, he hates brown people, but yet he's doing all of these things that the first black president never did for black people, and so you kind of have this new perspective on who Donald Trump is," she said.

The Kanye factor

In November, after confirming his faith in Jesus Christ, superstar rapper Kanye West affirmed his support for Trump and advised black Americans in an appearance in New York City not to vote Democrat.

"Own your power. Your power is not to just vote Democrat for the rest of our lives. That’s not the power," he said, the New York Post's Page Six reported.

In an interview one week earlier, he said black Americans have been "brainwashed" by Democrats who are making them abort their children.

West was asked about his support for Trump.

"I'd rather deal with somebody who call me the N-word to my face than a person that signed me for a lifetime deal on a 255-page contract," West replied. "I'd rather know what I'm dealing with."

The radio host asked if he was worried his support for Trump could be viewed as endorsement of "racism."

"The most racist thing a person can tell me is that I'm supposed to choose something based on my race," West said.