Analysis: Voters elected Biden for this moment of racial reckoning
Few presidents (certainly not the last one) would have made those comments.
But while Biden’s words may have stood out, they shouldn’t have been surprising. Biden might never have become president without having the appeal he did in 2020 on uniting the country on issues such as race relations.
Go back to last year. Biden’s 2020 campaign was on its last legs by the time of the South Carolina primary. He had lost the three previous contents and didn’t come close to winning any of them. Then he won the South Carolina primary by nearly 30 points.
South Carolina was no aberration. Biden won the plurality of voters who said race relations was their top issue in every single primary in which an exit poll crosstab is available. In all of those states, he carried a larger share of the race relations vote than he did statewide. In every single one of these states, Biden won a larger share of the race relations vote than he did on any other issue.
All told, he emerged with an average 34-point margin among voters who selected race relations as their most important issue.
Again, remember South Carolina. Biden won those who said uniting the country was most important by an astounding 46-point margin. These large margins would continue as Biden rolled through the rest of the primary system.
Floyd was murdered in the late spring, and video of his death was replayed over and over again, as protests filled the streets.
In the fall, Biden won the election.
Biden led Trump by 50 points among voters who said the issue of race relations was very important to their vote. The issue was of particular importance to Black respondents, who were over 20 points more likely to list it as a very important concern than respondents overall.
Now as president, Biden must lead to bring the country together and heal the wounds that many voters perceived after four years of Trump.
We’ll see if Biden’s words and actions, such as those following the Chauvin verdict, ultimately do that.
