Young black men may have been shifting toward the GOP. Then Trump happened.

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Young black women overwhelmingly voted for President Obama in 2012, but young black men did not. In fact, nearly one in five black men under 30 — some 19 percent — cast their ballots for Republican Mitt Romney, a major shift toward the GOP as compared to previous cycles. Just four years earlier, only 6 percent of the same demographic voted Republican, meaning GOP appeal to young black men more than tripled during Obama's first term.

But if that was the beginning of a significant political realignment, it may have been the end as well. Though young black voters aren't enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton, there's no way they're voting for Donald Trump. Just 2 percent of black voters under 30 say they will back Trump on Election Day.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.