Why Trump's improvement among minority voters doesn't yet signal 'a sea change' for conservatives

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

published 4 November 2020

Exit polls are heavily suggesting President Trump performed better among minority voters in 2020 against Joe Biden than he did in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.

That has raised the question of whether the Republican Party or the conservative movement at large in the United States could be in for a significant demographic shift. But The New York Times' Ross Douthat thinks that idea may be premature, since the exit polls — which he and others have noted aren't particularly trustworthy anyway — don't actually show a major swing among minority voters.

Exit poll data compiled by Edison Research, for example, shows that Clinton garnered support from 88 percent of Black voters, with Biden only dropping a tick to 87 percent. Based on those data sets, Trump did cut into the margins among minority voters four years later thanks to an increase in support, but that didn't necessarily come at the expense of the Democratic Party, overall (regionally, there were clear shifts).

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox