As the 2024 election approaches, Donald Trump is making significant headway among one particular group of voters: black men.
In the last presidential election, Trump won 12% of all black votes and a fifth of black male votes. Recent Opinion PollsA poll conducted before Joe Biden dropped out of the race found that 30% of black men supported Trump over Biden.
The Post spoke to four people who will vote for Trump for the first time in 2024.
Mark Fisher: ‘Democrats aren’t investing in black communities’
Mark Fisher co-founded the Rhode Island chapter of Black Lives Matter in 2020. Four years later, he’s voting for Trump.
“During the protests in Providence, I was at the forefront, I put myself at risk, I was on the front lines,” said Fisher, who organized the two major demonstrations. “But our enemy is not white people. Our enemy is an overzealous government.”
Fischer said Biden has done little to support the Black community during his time in the White House, but that Donald Trump’s support for school choice and hardline stance on the border have made Biden rethink his politics.
“Immigration is a politically avoidable issue,” said Fisher, the community activist. “It’s political suicide, which is why no one has ever addressed it before. One of the reasons Donald Trump has such overwhelming support is because he’s addressing issues that most people actually want to talk about.”
He recently reregistered as an independent after being a lifelong Democrat, and said he regrets voting for Biden in 2020.
“I thought everything I heard from the media was true. I didn’t know anything more than that,” he said. “‘Trump is bad.’ ‘Conservatives are racists.’ Those are the kinds of things they use.”
As for Harris, Fischer said, “Kamala Harris is even less popular than Joe Biden… The worst thing that could happen to this country is for Kamala to get into the White House.”
He says the quality of life in majority-black, Democratic cities made him realize that left-wing policies weren’t serving his constituents.
“These communities have high crime rates, they have poverty-stricken communities, they have dysfunctional education systems,” Fisher explained. “And when you add to that the unprecedented and unchecked illegal immigration … what the Democrats are bringing to the Black community is toxic for us.”
“These people don’t care about the black community. They care about maintaining power,” he added. “They’re pandering to black voters.”
Louis Kwame Fosu: “Republican policies are better suited to black and Latino people.”
Lewis Kwame Fosu said education is his top priority in the election and that’s why he’s voting for Trump for the first time.
“Our public school system needs to be completely gutted and overhauled in the interest of working people. The system isn’t working,” Voss told the Post. “We can’t allow black and Latino people to be forced to attend schools that don’t provide an education.”
Foss, a Washington, D.C., resident and executive director of the Diversity Think Tank, said Trump’s support for school choice is more in line with the interests of the black community.
“There’s this whole story that all Republicans are racist and all that stuff, but that’s a total media myth,” said Foss, a former political science professor at the University of Rhode Island. “When you actually look at the policies that benefit blacks and Latinos, Republican policies have served us much better.”
He says he has been receiving harsh criticism from his friends since switching parties from the Democratic Party.
“If you’re black and support the Republican Party, they attack you,” he said. “It’s not a coincidence that you rarely hear from black leaders who disagree with what the Democrats want… They’ve basically created an underclass, and if you don’t support them every election, you get ostracized from your community.”
But he has not flinched from criticism, and now the assassination attempt on Trump is yet another reason to go to the ballot box.
“For black men in particular, when Trump was attacked it was crystal clear how persecuted this man is,” Foss said. “When Democrats accused Trump of clearly victimless crimes, the black community saw that very clearly. It was very clear to us.”
Syl Hall: ‘My family blindly voted Democrat’
“There’s some societal pressure to be a Democrat, but it’s also just about taking other people’s word for it without doing your homework,” said Syl Hall, a Black man.
“I grew up with a lot of cousins who were politically inclined, so I basically followed their lead,” the Bronx resident, 52, told The Post. “I hate to admit it, but they’re African-American, so most of them just blindly voted Democrat.”
Hall, who sat out the last election, said his main motivation for supporting Trump in 2024 was the state of the economy.
“There were definitely more people working when Trump was president,” said Hall, a freelance video editor and seafood restaurant worker. “Now we need to get the economy going again. Trump is a businessman.”
Living in New York City, immigration is also a major concern.
“I understand people are trying to get out of a bad situation into a better one, but it needs to be done in a lawful way,” Hall added.
He said he has faced backlash as he is “100 per cent open” in his support of Trump.
“People unintentionally say things about Trump that I know aren’t true,” Hall said. “I argue with almost everyone in my family, and I tell them they have to listen to this man’s policies. I think the only valid criticism they have is the way he conducts himself. I like the way he interacts with other leaders around the world, but I don’t like the way he interacts with the media, and some of the things he says don’t reflect well with the image of our country.”
As for Kamala Harris winning the Democratic nomination, he said, “That would be a bad move for the party. I’ve heard she’s not very popular and she’s just chilling with regular people.”
Linwood Dillard III: “Inflation is changing my vote.”
Inflation is drawing Lynnwood Dillard III to the ballot box.
“Money worked differently under Trump,” said Dillard, who runs a mobile barbershop in New York City. “It felt like money was worth more. It didn’t feel stagnant. It didn’t feel like if I didn’t go to work I wasn’t going to eat that day.”
“There’s nothing you can do. It costs $150 just to walk outside,” he added.
Dillard, 41, grew up in Harlem and lives in the Bronx, and says he’s “always been a Democrat.”
“I didn’t pay attention to policy then. I didn’t look at it that way. I didn’t know anything about politics,” he said, “But as I got older, I started to see how politics impacts everything and how it trickles down.”
Dillard didn’t vote in 2020 because of her dislike of Biden, but this time around, she’s feeling crushed by inflation and has decided to support Trump for his economic policies.
“He’s a businessman,” Dillard added. “He’s going to run this country like a business. He knows what he’s doing. He knows how to make money.”
Dillard also said she finds Trump’s outspoken personality appealing.
“I’d rather have a straight-up jerk than someone who has a smile on their face but does stuff behind my back,” he said. “At the end of the day, [Trump] He is the only one who is instigating the Congress.”
