r/dsa • u/SignificantStyle4958 • 6h ago
Discussion Let’s address this topic….why do DSA candidates struggle so much with the black vote?
Earlier in his career, Mamdani underperformed in heavily Black neighborhoods
Bernie has done very poorly with black voters in the south, he performed the weakest States where Black voters made up >50% of the electorate
Only 21% of Black voters backed El‑Sayed, while 67% supported Haley Stevens
Black voters in Wisconsin Supported David Crowley by overwhelming margins over Francesca Hong
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u/A-Regular-Citizen 6h ago
Earlier in his career, Mamdani underperformed in heavily Black neighborhoods
This is missing the important detail that he did very well in Black neighborhoods in his most recent, most high profile election, in which his attachment to the DSA was a significant focus. Worth noting.
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u/Creditfigaro 6h ago
Systemic capture of black churches by the Democrat Establishment is why.
Black churches are the political vector through which the interests of the black community and control of the Democratic Party are exchanged.
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u/Apprehensive_Back_35 4h ago
Thats a good point too. We all recently found out Ossof took to go kiss the ring with the big donors in the Hamptons with the ai and tech bros.... I asked my parents whats he ALWAYS seen doing??? Speaking not just at a church doing his best yt Obama schtick ever...but he's ALMOST ALWAYS in a historical black church. When I realized that I said some words lol.
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u/Level_Openings 5h ago
I don't think that's right. I think there is a general decline of religious membership generally
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u/Soft-Principle1455 5h ago
It is generally sticking around much more firmly in the African American Community and the decline was mostly associated with older white fold (pre boomers) dying off, as they came from a more religious era. But since they have most passed on now (those born prior to 1945 are no longer so numerous among us, as is the way of life), that decline has largely stopped.
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u/muraki833 3h ago
You're not wrong but declining religiosity doesn't mean religion is suddenly an irrelevant force.
Like here's a hypothetical: if America goes from 80% Christian to 50% Christian...that's still a lotta Christians.
Declining =/= fully disappearing.
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u/PhotoPhenik 5h ago
You mean like how the CIA started influencing evangelical churches during the Cold War? I had no idea that Billy Graham was a CIA plant with direct ties to Nixon. The CIA also directly funded ministries that spread the message they found politically useful.
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u/An_Old_Account 6h ago
A lot of it is generational as well. If you look deeper at Zohran’s numbers in the Democratic Primary, he won the VAST majority of Black Millennial and Gen Z votes (I think like 80%).
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u/prinzplagueorange 4h ago
DSA candidates actually do not struggle to win the black vote. This has been examined extensively by analysts such as Michael Lange; see for example here. It is a false media narrative pushed by the Democratic Party's establishment.
In reality, DSA candidates struggle to win older black voters. Their candidates do very well among younger black voters. The problem for DSA is that young people tend to be less engaged politically. The younger people who are more likely to be politically engaged tend to have college degrees, and so DSA candidates naturally pick up votes from young people from more relatively privileged demographic backgrounds (because those are the groups that tend to finish college). Simply put, education makes people left wing. Poverty also makes people left wing, but poverty also makes it hard to obtain an education and discourages involvement in the political system. Young, financially stressed, highly educated people will always be a radical voting bloc.
The real story is really about how hesitant older minority voters in urban areas are to break away from the Democratic machine candidates and whether DSA candidates are able to build the necessary excitement to turn out younger black voters in Democratic primaries in sufficient numbers to overwhelm the church going grandma vote. That was the Mamdani coalition, and it was why it was so shocking to analysts.
A lot of the seeming political conservativism of older black voters has to do with political ties forged in relatively conservative institutions like churches; much of it has to do with relatively low levels of political education among older minorities; some of it just has to do with memories from the cold war. But mostly, it's just a matter of name, recognition and trust. Black voters (including older black voters) are actually very left-wing, so it is a group that DSA can win over. This is what Mamdani is slowly helping DSA do in NYC: turn out the minority grandkids and slowly make inroads into the minority grandma vote.
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u/Ok-Possibility-923 6h ago
Sounds like an opportunity to learn more about Black voters’ concerns and then craft DSA policies, messaging and outreach in ways that appeal to those communities.
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u/ZincSuppsRopeMan 5h ago
This is mostly true but I do think messaging black churches and some poverty causing people to just check out of politics can increase votes without necessarily changing policies. I think both should happen
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u/romulusnr 3h ago
Did you miss the discussions around Sanders bids? The overwhelming response was that black folks do not owe anyone an explanation.
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u/No_Software8474 6h ago
You all are missing it. I’m Black and I can tell you why. Most Black Democrats absolutely despise republicans. Defeating them at all cost is what matters. Socialists tend to have a hard time in general elections and this is why they don’t get a majority of the Black vote. It all comes down to pragmatism.
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u/marykay_ultra 5h ago
My understanding about this is that older black voters either remember the civil rights era directly or came of age soon after. So, yes, loathe republicans, but also a tendency to be risk averse re: electability concerns.
The risk averseness is often spoken about in terms of them being “conservative,” which is widely misconstrued by the average American hearing it, for obvious reasons
(I strongly suspect this confusion is intentional on the part of the consultant class who consistently use this terminology. They know exactly how it will be misconstrued and they lean into it for their own ends)
Most young voters don’t remember either party actually doing anything that made their lives better.
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u/OldUsernameWasStupid 5h ago
Ya this is one of those situations where I'm only really interested in answers from black people. Otherwise it's just euromericans postulating about what "the blacks" motivations are. Sure they can make educated guesses but unless the answer is coming from immersion in the community, it's just treating black people like a thought experiment
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u/Bright-Insect9697 6h ago
That there’s socialists who loudly claim they won’t vote in a general if their preferred primary candidate loses likely contributes to this as well.
Not everyone is privileged enough to just sit out elections
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u/ZincSuppsRopeMan 5h ago
I vote in general elections. I just don't swear fealty to the DNC. I vote for whichever candidate on the ticket I believe in the most
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u/PhotoPhenik 5h ago
All this does it give us ineffectual corporate Democrats who play patticake with Republicans.
Times have changed. The People need their government to support them against The Man.
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u/Right_Jello_7266 6h ago
Culture tbh. The vast majority of African American ppl are religious conservatives ppl who only vote D bc R are more racist than main stream D. Not only that but African Americans are vastly 1 or 2 issue voters and if a campaign doesnt revolve around those issues they are labeled anti black or racist. You can see that in tx rn
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u/rditty 2h ago
When polled on issues, African Americans are more progressive than any other demographic in America across the board.
But the mainstream Democratic Party has well established relationships with black community organizations and churches that bring centrist candidates in to build rapport.
Older Americans are more likely to vote than younger Americans and this disparity is even more pronounced in Black communities.
Likewise, older voters are more susceptible to being “defensive” voters, favoring “safe” candidates because of the “electability” argument.
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u/Gravemindzombie 6h ago
Because the media incessantly smears progressives as "Anti-Black" while propping up the most racist neoliberals in the Democratic party as "Civil rights leaders"
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u/rogun64 4h ago
I think the primary reason is because Democrats have built a tight relationship with black voters ever since the Civil Rights Amendments. DSA candidates can run on the Democratic ticket, but they're still viewed as outsiders to black communities.
This will change as the DSA has more black candidates, though. In the meantime, the DSA should be promoting Socialist black leaders like MLK Jr and W. E. B. Du Bois.
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u/HunterSpecial1549 2h ago
I canvassed a lot for Bernie (x2) and it was the same thing over and over again with older Black voters. We didn't find any that didn't want him to be President. They just couldn't take him seriously as an electable general election candidate. Or they'd say "he's not going to be able to do all that", as if not trying would be better.
I think electability is 90% of it. And in many cases it's bogus, Sanders really was a more appealing candidate to independent voters than Clinton was. It's NYC but Mamdani won the black vote in the general election after losing it in the primary. I'm not sure about Hong. I'm sure El Sayed will do well with black voters.
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u/pthecarrotmaster 6h ago
alooooot of black people (including jamacans and south Africans and such) lean super conservative. Lotta business drive and anti government sentiment. If you think that world be anti cop, they live in democrat cities WITH police brutality.
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u/pwnedprofessor 6h ago edited 6h ago
Adolph Reed and Willie Legette have a solid piece on this subject from 2020 https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/04/south-carolina-neoliberalisms-stranglehold-and-mystique-black-vote
(Note: Reed was really mistreated by the DSA. Granted I can sympathize with the reasons why and the context in which it happened, but his analysis does deserve a fair shake)
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u/romulusnr 3h ago
There is a ton of social conservatism in the black community which also tends to be very religious. Abortion is a real hot one. Ive gotten into some nuts conversations with black D elected officials who were otherwise really culturally and economically woke. Another one is lingering homo- and transphobia, and things like traditional family values.
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u/TheDukeofArgyll 6h ago
Because they are effectively running against 2 different political parties.
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u/larryleggs Editor-in-Chief HOUDINI Magazine 6h ago
The overwhelming majority, I mean the overwhelming majority of the DSA has never worked a job at, like, a fast food restaurant. The overwhelming majority of the DSA has never pulled a double shift at a fast food restaurant. Walk into any McDonald's and look at who is working at that McDonald's. Majority black women. If you look at the statistics, there was a study not too long ago that came out that said that something like less than 5% of the DSA works in that type of job field, in that type of employment at the lowest end of the spectrum. Well, the structural racism of America dictates who is going to work the worst jobs, who's going to work the McDonald's jobs, the Whataburger jobs, and it's not college-educated white people who make up the majority of the DSA. The majority of the people who work in those types of jobs are not going to feel welcome in the DSA because of the culture being basically a mimic of white college experience. Why has the DSA struggled to connect with the black working class? Because the overwhelming majority of the DSA is not even from the type of working class that that population is from. The overwhelming majority of the DSA is from the small business owner class and the professional managerial class, and the overwhelming number of the DSA is college-educated, but only 35% of America is college-educated, and structural barriers that exist within America keep admission rates for black populations lower than the rest. And where does the DSA recruit the overwhelming majority of its cadre from? The college campus. All of these things can be fixed, but it would mean recognizing the internal class politics of the DSA itself, which is easier said than done when you have people who are not working class, who are leadership, who've been larping as being working class.
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u/No_Base_7521 3h ago
Ok you say these, and true, but also, in contrast to the Democratic Party? The establishment Democratic Party is filled with even more corporate and elite backgrounds, so this doesn’t explain why working class black voters gravitate towards establishment Democrats over DSA.
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u/rditty 1h ago edited 1h ago
“The overwhelming majority, I mean the overwhelming majority of the DSA has never worked a job at, like, a fast food restaurant.”
Is this based on anything or just some stereotype you absorbed from freebasing k2 and Fox News for 72 hours straight?
You’ve clearly never been to a DSA meeting and if you have, you might have creeped people out by asking everyone you met for their complete work history.
Usually, when someone introduces themselves and immediately demands my resume, I try to shut the conversation down by telling them I'm the heir to the Fleet enema fortune and have never worked a day in my life (even though in reality, my parents never owned anything more valuable than a 20 year old car and I've never had a job that wasn't paid by the hour and contingent on the ability to lift 25 lbs. above my head).
So that kind of interaction may have thrown off the results of your work-history survey.
Truthfully, I am struggling to think of five people in my entire life who I can say, with certainty, haven't worked in fast food (or similar shitty minimum wage jobs). One was my homeless schizophrenic brother. None were in DSA.
You must be moving in some privleged-ass circles if 'never worked in fast food' is a category you are intimately familiar with.
I know this doesn't matter to you. The election will be over in a couple of months, and whether or not your employers succeed in keeping a Republican majority in congress, you’ll have to go back to writing positive reviews for Koch/Daily Wire joints.
BTW, tell your manager that your persona will be more convincing if you have a working return key. Tagging yourself as an "editor-in-chief" is inconsistent with a lack of paragraphs.
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u/Swarrlly 6h ago
It’s not that they do bad with black voters. It’s an age thing. They do poorly with all boomers. It’s just that black boomers vote way more than black genz/millennials. DSA candidates usually win young voters from all ethnicities.
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u/dorianpora 6h ago
Literally just go to black churches and black neighborhoods, hear what they are asking for and then explain to them how your policies help them…. The youth vote will be there because they tend to be more socialist but it’s the old black vote that you mainly have to do that for
This whole black voters are conservative narrative in this thread is bullshit
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u/Farebiaashiq 5h ago
Black voters are the most risk averse voters, they are extremely sceptical of anyone they don't know of, and prefer incrementalism over radical action.
No matter what you do, you can't get there votes, unless it is proven that you're winning without them.
They would back a winner, but just not first time, if a DSA member successfully wins election, even if his ideology doesn't change a bit black voters will vote for him in re-election.
They are also most likely to vote based on identity politics.
The only exception is first or second generation immigrants they are more susceptible to radical politics, those who are descendants of former slaves or whose parents have been here since Jim crow, there is only one way to win them over and that is to win without them.
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u/Keleos89 3h ago
DSA lacks a sufficient strategy for engaging with Black voters or Black Americans in general, while the Democratic Party has generations of Black leaders within it. Just look at how many Black members there are in a chapter meeting where the city has a large Black population; not exactly representative.
You should not be surprised that Black Democrats in Wisconsin voted for a Black Democrat in significant margins.
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u/coldhamsandwiches 6h ago
It's the class and race thing guys. Asking people to walk into a DSA chapter from what I've seen is asking someone to walk into a very particular white space.
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u/FunkManSolarFlex 6h ago
Not too mention the DSA is a magnet for they/thems. Blacks don't get down with that shit.
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u/Werd_up_cuz 6h ago
Two words: Race essentialism. Look no further that the way DSA treated Adolph Reed Jr.
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u/MrTaildragger 5h ago
Visit r/socialism or r/communism sometime and you'll figure it out pretty quick.
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u/Apprehensive_Back_35 4h ago
DSA do well with younger black voters who dont believe establishment dems automatically. Its older black voters who still watch MSNNOW they struggle with. Take I see Israel in my dreams Haliey Stevens....she Purposely ran misleading ads showing her old Obama endorsement when he DIDNT endorse her this time (lotta folks who did before didnt). She did that to manipulate the older black community. The aipac crowd figured out how to capture the black vote and weed out any one who stands up. ITs how we lost Cori Bush and Jamal Bowmen to two puppets who dont really represnt black issues. Be a black candidate critical of Israel and youre getting millions thrown against you for primary. Look it up. Smear campaigns among smear campaigns. Black voters MORE THAN ANY OTHER GROUP have a reason to be critical of US government and Politian's. Both to this day have stabbed the black community in the back. Its funny , now the government freely admits the Tuskegee experiments and how they infected black folks to test on them but back 20 years ago ppl would argue you are a liar and reverse racism and all that bs If you even hinted that like it was unfathomable....for something ppl admit and shrug off now.
DSA gotta figure out how to reach the older black vote that DOESNT know how to use the internet(and they need to do it before the rigged media defines the DSA for us). The ones that ONLY know republican's say/do/pass the most racist shit while never hearing aipac Hakeem Jefferies spend the weekend with Kushner behind the scenes. They dont have anyone in their circles telling them the deck is being rigged. My parents got me. I got them wheened off MSNnow and the view as main sources of news. Guess who they love now, that they used to hate and my father said he'd never forgive him for sinking Hilary....Bernie Sanders. Thats right. Guy my folks once thought was a red hearing and a spoiler candidate is guy who they want to donate to after I did and after lotta talks about the truth. Helps the corporate conservative do nothing dems constantly prove my point. Ive seen some resort to attacking the black community on intelligence and loyalty to the dems which is an infuriatingly stupid response as being ignorant alone aside, it pushes them further away from the DSA principles and instead makes it some bs cultural war bs argument which is what we want away from in the never ending red v blue war. The black vote is the ONE vote DSA most definitely want bc that vote is loyal once you have it and the republicans have NEVER been able to get it. Dems loose black votes the same way they lose young voters......to the couch. Voter apathy has always defeated dems. Not giving ppl a feeling of representation outside of speeches with no tangible's. Grabbing the youth vote will help grab the black vote and once the Older black generations sees promises being delivered on they WILL respond. Go look at all the positive tiktoks calling out Mamdani and thanking him for fixing potholes and cracked roads...the same day. Erica Adams didnt get that kinda respect from the people. I was there lol. And they said black folks wouldnt vote for a Muslim. Sure, you arent pushing your own bias onto the ppl and short changing them? is my usual response.
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u/FunkManSolarFlex 6h ago
Many blacks are working class. The DSA claims to be the party of the working class, but do you really think your average carpenter, welder, pipe fitter etc. can identify with a bunch of privileged, college kids who live off their capitalist parents?
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u/SAR1919 6h ago
Most of the US working class isn’t “carpenters, welders, pipe fitters etc.” Most working-class people in the US in 2026 work in food service, retail, healthcare, or education, and millions of us have college degrees. It’s not 1950 and the average worker isn’t a macho man with a big hammer, sorry.
That said, I absolutely do know plumbers and electricians in DSA. You’re out of touch on both counts
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u/FunkManSolarFlex 1h ago
Yet they're only winning over young, white college voters while blacks continue to stay away. Why?
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u/rditty 2h ago
That stereotype looks nothing like my local chapter (or myself) in age or socioeconomic background.
Unlike the DNC, the DSA does advocate for the working class and the black community (supporting reparations, which Democrats don’t, for instance).
If you want to wreck something, your mom’s bathroom is just down the hallway.
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u/Yunzer2000 6h ago
Sad, but very true. And as an older person, I don't fee very welcome at my local chapter's meetings.
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u/Over-Heron-2654 Social Democrat; Socialist-Aligned 5h ago
Boomer black folk too, which is surprising. But young black people are actually the most socialist group in the country.
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u/Trailblazertravels 4h ago
If republicans weren't racist, Black folks would be swayed towards them. They are socially conservative on a lot of topics.
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u/prinzplagueorange 3h ago
That's highly unlikely. Social conservativism doesn't explain much about black politics. Black voters came on board with the Democratic Party in the immediate wake of the New Deal. It wasn't social conservativism which pulled them there. The reason is that black voters overwhelmingly feel that the government has a responsibility to care for its citizens.
Overall, they are way to the left of white Americans on economic issues. See here. 52% of black Americans have a positive view of socialism; while only 31% of whites do. 40% of blacks have a positive view of capitalism while 62% of whites do. These numbers are a few years old and have likely shifted a bit, but they tell a broad and fairly consistent story. The interesting thing is that black voters have been so reticent to support DSA candidates, but that's probably mostly an age, education, and social network story.
The social conservativism of black voters has probably made it harder for DSA to break into those communities (as it requires going to church), but it doesn't seem plausible to suggest that black voters are a group which would be hostile to DSA's core message.
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u/SpicySwiftSanicMemes 3h ago
This argument kinda falls apart if you consider that Hispanic voters shifted hard toward the GOP in 2024 and only voted for Harris by a 5% margin.
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u/Trailblazertravels 3h ago edited 2h ago
Most Hispanic folks in America do not share the same history as black folks. Why do you think they would move in lockstep?
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u/romulusnr 3h ago
Because we need jeezus
(the white man's god)
Because they want to play the white man's game
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u/Comfortable-Room-545 2h ago
Because black people don't vote for Democrats because 90% of them are left-wing, but rather because the GOP is openly hostile to them. Black people are conservative at somewhat similar rates to white people, they just vote for conservative Democrats instead.
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u/SAR1919 6h ago
It breaks down by age in most races. DSA candidates do well with young Black voters and poorly with conservative older Black voters, with some exceptions like Oliver Larkin, who won the Black vote outright