CNN analyst Nia-Malika Henderson said Wednesday that President Biden's campaign was plainly worried about Black voters turning out to vote, and suggested they figure it out.
"I think the Biden campaign has to figure out how to talk about race, how to talk about racism. They clearly are relying on African American voters to turn out, right? And they clearly see a pattern where there are at least some African-Americans who are attracted to either staying home or being attracted to the Donald Trump campaign. About 10 to 12% of the African American electorate that are Black Republicans. You see in Donald Trump a real, I think, successful effort to unite Black Republicans around his campaign. So the Biden team is obviously worried about that," Henderson told CNN's Dana Bash in response to questions about the Biden campaign's Juneteenth statement.
Biden's campaign called Donald Trump a "racist" in their Juneteenth message, according to CNN. "Donald Trump has spent his life denigrating Black Americans," the campaign said to mark the day, which commemorates the effective end of slavery in the United States. It became a federal holiday in 2021.
"If you look at polls, they're at like 70, 75% in terms of their support among African Americans. They need 90% in some of these places to win. So they are hitting him with the race card and bringing up some of his darker moments in terms of characterizing African Americans," she added.
Bash showed video of Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who has doubted polling showing Trump's gains among Black voters.
Clyburn insisted Biden had a "quiet constituency," and questioned whether Black families were really going to vote for Trump.
CNN's Daniel Strauss said the fact that the Biden campaign was going on offense to "further frame Donald Trump as a racist" spoke to how concerned they are by the polls.
"This overall speaks to a larger pattern in this election, that this is, right now, two campaigns fighting over very, very specific slices of the electorate and how close both campaigns expect this election to be," Strauss said.
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CNN's Kayla Tausche suggested the campaign's written statement directed at Trump was a way to keep Biden above the fray as the president, but said voters didn't see it this way.
"The voters see President Biden as the candidate who was running for reelection. And if these words come on paper, and not coming out of his mouth, then it’s really hard for them to hear that and for that message to land," she said.
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A USA Today/Suffolk University poll released on Sunday found that support for Biden among Black voters has dropped roughly 20 percentage points since the last election in both Michigan and Pennsylvania. In Michigan, the poll found Trump has 15% of Black voters, compared to Biden at 54% of the support from Black voters.
Trump received just 9% of the Black vote in Michigan in the 2020 election.
The former president gets 11% of the Black vote in Pennsylvania, according to the poll, which is up three points compared to 2020. A majority, 56%, of Black voters still prefer Biden in the state.
