W. Mondale Robinson spent a large chunk of last fall in clubs and bars and concert venues in Georgia, trying to convince disenchanted Black men that casting a ballot in the 2020 general election, then the Georgia runoffs for the U.S. Senate could finally mean real change in their communities.
But Robinson, founder of the Black Male Voter Project, thinks the case would be a lot harder to make now. He remembers the exact moment his optimism that President Biden would be different began to fade: when Democrats in May said they were willing to significantly weaken a policing reform bill to get Republican support.
More disappointments followed. Robinson was dismayed that Biden did not push for filibuster reform to enact a $15 minimum wage. He was upset that the president did not try to halt a raft of voting restrictions passed by Georgias GOP-led legislature.
I think the frustration is at an all-time high, and Biden cant go to Georgia or any other Black state in the South and say, This is what we delivered in 2021, said Robinson, whose group believes it reached 1.2 million Black men in Georgia. Black men are pissed off about the nothingness that has happened . . . Does it make the work harder? It makes the work damn near impossible.
After an initial burst of support, Biden has seen his approval ratings fall significantly in recent months. A Washington Post average of polls since the start of September shows 44 percent of Americans approve of Bidens job approval, while 49 percent disapprove.
And polls suggest support for Biden has sunk notably among key Democratic constituencies Blacks, Latinos, women and young people. Pew Research Center polls found Bidens approval rating among Black Americans fell from 85 percent in July to 67 percent in September, while also falling 16 points among Hispanics and 14 points among Asians.
Interviews with nearly 20 advocates, activists and politicians in the crucial state of Georgia which Biden won narrowly, in large part due to support from Black voters, after decades of Republican dominance give a sense of the sentiments behind those numbers. At the center are Black and other minority voters who helped fuel Bidens victory, but who now see what they consider unfulfilled promises and dwindling hope for meaningful change.
In some sense, the benefit of the doubt portion of Bidens presidency is over. While the president gained initial goodwill among many from simply not being Trump, especially when it came to the coronavirus, now those who supported him are demanding results, and his lack of a devoted base is starting to show.
If midterms are about enthusiasm and turnout, who do you think is excited to vote on November 2 at this moment? said Ns Ufot, chief executive officer of the New Georgia Project, which has registered more than a half-million voters. Because it aint Democrats. It aint Black folks. It aint young people.
It remains to be seen whether Bidens falling support is a sign of enduring enmity or a short-term reflection of a tough stretch marked by a haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan, a stalled domestic agenda and a surge in coronavirus infections due to the Delta variant.
But the discontent is particularly visible in Georgia, where Democrats had hoped demographic changes and mobilization efforts would offer a blueprint for expanding their electoral map.
Some Biden voters said the president will struggle to keep hard-to-engage voters in the fold if he fails to deliver on the issues that motivated them in the first place, notably police reform and voting rights. And they dismissed Democrats efforts to blame the lack of progress solely on the partisan divide.
There are some things that they are willing to hold the line for and to be more adamant about, said Christine White, executive director of the Georgia Alliance for Progress, which funds nonprofits across the state. And I think that there are times where we cower and we believe the rhetoric about partisanship.
Biden and his aides warn against putting too much stock in poll numbers. In taking on tough issues, they say, the president knew the politics would sometimes be tough. But if Biden can defeat the pandemic, pass his infrastructure and social agenda, and continue making progress on racial justice which they are confident he can they say his popularity will take care of itself.
Biden and his vice-presidential pick, Kamala D. Harris campaigned hard in Georgia, which had not been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992. After the election, it became clear that the U.S. Senate majority would ultimately be decided in Georgia, as a result of unusual runoffs that put both of the states seats up for grabs. At a rally in Atlanta, Biden said that winning both seats and the Senate majority would unlock a laundry list of benefits.
The power is literally in your hands, Biden told Georgians. You can break the gridlock that has gripped Washington and this nation. With their votes in the Senate, well be able to make the progress we need to make on jobs, on health care, on justice, on the environment, on so many important things.
But to many of those voters, those changes are nowhere to be found.
Two months after Biden spoke in Atlanta, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law that places new restrictions on mail and early voting and reduces the number of ballot drop boxes, while criminalizing outside groups who offer food and water to voters waiting in line. Critics say the bill has an outsize effect on voters of color, and Biden himself has called it Jim Crow 2.0.
But Congress has been unable to pass a voting rights law. And the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act co-authored by Harris when she was a senator died after a bipartisan group was unable to find a compromise, despite repeated urging from Biden to get it done before the anniversary of Floyds death.
At the same time, many have been disturbed by images of Haitian immigrants, seeking asylum during a tumultuous time in that country, being herded and struck by White immigration agents on horseback. The images, White said, send a signal to Black people that our government has not done enough to eradicate the racist structural behaviors of law enforcement. . . . The message that comes across very easily through the imagery is that America doesnt care about Black people, period.
The White House says Biden has gone to great lengths to help communities of color, from appointing a historic number of minorities to weaving racial justice provisions throughout his pandemic, infrastructure and social safety-net bills. For example, the American Rescue Plan the official name of Bidens pandemic relief law includes debt relief for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, which includes Black, Latino and other minority farmers.
The Black agenda is bigger than voting rights and bigger than the George Floyd Police and Justice Act, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said recently.
Aides also say the president has not given up on pushing voting rights and police reform bills through Congress. Both are hugely important, Psaki said. The president has committed to getting them both done. He wants to sign them into law. Pressed on why Biden has not made that happen, she noted that Congress is a separate body. You need 50 votes to change the filibuster. You also need the majority of votes to pass legislation into law.