Amplifying Black Perspectives: Insights from the 2024 Pre-Election Survey

Our sample is highly educated, as 60% of respondents have obtained advanced degrees. The respondents were predominantly female (80%) and resided mostly on the East Coast.[i] Nine percent of respondents identified as members of the LGBTQ+ community, and the sample had a fairly normal distribution of different age groups. Black communities are not monolithic, and our research suggests that factors like age, geography, and sexual orientation shaped the political attitudes of our respondents.

The 2024 election cycle was rife with divisive rhetoric that targeted marginalized groups, including television ads that framed LGBTQ issues as “they/them vs. you,” Donald Trump’s debate response about immigrants taking “Black jobs,” and JD Vance’s comment about single women being “childless cat ladies,” to name a few.[ii] These politicians used inflammatory comments to sew divisions between communities. While all our respondents identified as Black, their values were shaped by their diverse intersectional experiences. We evaluated how the intersections of race, gender, sexual orientation, and age impacted the respondents’ perspectives on key issues.

We found a sharp difference — nearly 30 percentage points — between LGBTQ and heterosexual respondents on the importance of LGBTQ issues. Male respondents were 7% less likely than female respondents to classify reproductive rights as a key issue. Lastly, while climate change was a key issue for most Gen Z respondents, about 25% of Gen X and Baby Boomer respondents said climate change was not a key issue. These results show that the Black community is not uniform on these issues, and politicians and advocates need to diversify their approaches in order to best address voters’ needs.

The South has both the largest concentration of Black Americans and a long history of racial discrimination and voter suppression. Since over 50% of our respondents lived in the South, we analyzed the concerns of our Southern respondents in comparison to the other regions (Northeast, Midwest, and West) to see if geography affected election perceptions. We found that, generally, Southern respondents were more likely to be “Very Concerned” in response to the statements than respondents from other regions. Southern respondents were three times more likely to say they were “Very Concerned” about their ability to vote, which is the result of voter suppression efforts. For example, Alabama does not offer early voting, so voters often face long lines and must make work and childcare arrangements in order to make their voices heard on Election Day. Southern respondents were also twice as concerned about accidentally violating the rules of their polling place. Many Southern states have passed laws to change voting procedures since 2020, like the 2021 Georgia bill that made it illegal to distribute water to voters waiting in line.[iii] These results show that even highly educated voters struggled to understand how to vote in their state. This highlights the need for more robust voter education plans in Southern states. Lastly, Southern respondents were more concerned about the use of technology to spread misinformation, including the use of robocalls and deepfakes. Only a handful of Southern states have legislation to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in political ads, and the use of this technology is having a disproportionate impact on Black Southerners. Several of the Southern states, like Georgia and North Carolina, are swing states where campaigns spent millions of dollars on political advertising in the 2024 election cycle. These results capture Southern voters’ anxieties about accessing accurate information on political candidates and their policies.

ALC took place six weeks before Election Day, and we asked attendees about their political enthusiasm. Respondents showed significant enthusiasm about the election that persisted across gender, sexual orientation, region, and age group, with minimal variance. This finding contrasts with the narrative that voters of color were apathetic or disengaged from politics in 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris attended CBCF’s 2024 Phoenix Awards Dinner as a part of ALC, and the room was buzzing with excitement. She was fresh off the Democratic National Convention, where she accepted her historic nomination for President. In the aftermath of her nomination, we asked conference attendees about their enthusiasm about the election since she entered the race. Three out of four respondents expressed more excitement once Harris emerged as the Democratic nominee.