The 2024 election has seen no shortage of headlines flagging an apparent slip in support for Democrats among Black and Latino voters. While poll after poll to suggests that former President Donald Trump stands to make some gains among these groups, experts are skeptical of the narrative, at least until Election Day.

In recent years, the Democratic Party has seen its support slip among Black and Hispanic voters, and Republicans, including Trump, have tried to capture these votes. This year, it also looks like Vice President Kamala Harris is set to overperform among older voters, leading to an image of an older and whiter Democratic Party. While there’s been much ink spilled on these trends, the scale of this shift and the potential dangers of reading into it too much has gone under the radar.

There has been no shortage of attention paid to Trump’s reported increase in support among Black Americans this year. In 2020, President Joe Biden won 87% support among Black voters compared to Trump's 12%. Recent NAACP polling found that some 63% of Black voters say they plan to support Harris compared to just 13% who say they plan to support Trump, showing some potential slippage for Harris but little gain for Trump.

The increase in support for Trump, however, appears to be mostly isolated to younger Black men. Looking at the crosstabs of the NAACP poll, 26% of Black men under 50 say they support Trump compared to 49% who say they plan to support Harris. For comparison, 77% of Black men over 50 say they support Harris and 67% of Black women say they support Harris while just 8% say they support Trump.

Other polls have found similar results. A recent Associated Press/NORC survey found that 21% of all Black men and 22% of all Black voters aged 18 to 44 say Trump would make a good president. The same survey found that just 11% of Black women and 8% of Black voters over 45 said the same thing.

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If these polling results are accurate, it suggests that Trump has gained some support among Black men. It’s crucial, however, to keep the size of this shift in perspective.

In 2020, exit polling shows that Trump enjoyed 19% support among all Black men. This means that it’s still a fairly modest increase in support even among the group of Black voters that has swung the most towards Trump, likely somewhere between three to six points, based on the aforementioned polling.

Howard University’s Initiative on Public Opinion conducts polls with a focus on Black Americans, with their........

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