Pictured is former vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, CLEVELAND, Ohio- Former vice president Joe Biden, who served under former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, will face incumbent Republican President Donald Trump for the 2020 presidential election in November and young Black voters and activists want him to woo them to get their votes, including joining them in their fight to eradicate racism and to defund the police across the country and reallocate those funds to community venues.
And while elderly and southern Black voters may be enamored with Biden, 77, who leads Trump in the polls by as much as 12 percentage points, some young Black people, many of them among the millennial generation, say his message falls short of addressing public policy issues of significance from criminal justice reform, to systemic racism, excessive force, educational and job opportunities, and widespread political and public corruption.
They say his candidacy is not generating enough excitement and that neither Republicans nor Democrats are doing enough, if anything truly substantive at all, to deal with America's racism problem, and its cops-killing-Black-folks- problem.
His online interview with "The Breakfast Club" a few months ago for which he later apologized for being arrogant and saying that Blacks aren't Black if they do not vote for him did not help, not to mention the exchange during the First Democratic Debate where then rival candidate U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, a Black Democrat now on his shortlist as a potential running mate for vice president, accused him of fraternizing with segregationists as a U.S. senator, and of opposing court-ordered busing plans during the schools desegregation era.
Simply put, young Black voters are not clinging to Biden as a whole, and have asked for concessions in exchange from votes from the young Black community.
This comes as a new Civil Rights Movement emerges in the midst of a global pandemic and following nationwide protests and riots behind the Minneapolis police killing in May of unarmed 46-year-old Black man George Floyd, and the erroneous shooting death by Louisville Metro police in March of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, who was also Black.
Nonetheless, Biden remains the favorite among Black voters in general.
A June 25 Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that a whopping 92 percent of Black voters support him over Trump for president.
Biden has long been a favorite son in Democratic political circles.
Winning the Democratic nomination for president this year was all but ensured for Biden, a former longtime U.S. senator from Delaware turned vice president, when his closest opponent dropped out of the race, U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
A socialist Democrat, Sanders was making his second bid for president after losing the nomination to Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton going on to lose the general election to Trump, a real estate mogul and former television personality.
During his bid this time around for the nomination Sanders, as was Biden, was effective in narrowing the more than 28 Democratic candidates down to the two of them.
Sanders nearly won Iowa, coming in second place to Pete Buttigieg, and he went on to win New Hampshire and Nevada.
But Biden, powered by the Black vote and an endorsement from Black U.S. Rep James Clyburn, subsequently won South Carolina, and Super Tuesday, and never looked back.
Obama and Sanders, and Sen Harris, and nearly all of the other Democrats who ran for president this year, and the Dems in general, have endorsed Biden's candidacy for president as the polls continue to dampen President Trump's campaign for reelection.
A still popular Republican among his strong base of supporters, President Trump lags behind Bideni in nearly every poll, including the conservative leaning Fox News poll, and Quinnipiac, CNN, ABC News/Washington Post, and Emerson polls.
And while polls show Biden is the favorite to win the presidency this year, when Democrats and Black people stay home and do not vote, or, since the coronavirus outbreak, choose not to vote by mail, it helps the Republicans, data show.
While Black voter turnout for the first time in history proportionately outpaced Whites in 2012 when Obama ran for reelection, it declined by 7 percentage points in 2016 when Clinton lost the presidency to Trump, pundits saying that if Blacks vote in this year's election like they did in 2012 Biden has a good chance of beating Trump.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
