President Joe Biden, with less than six months left until the November U.S. presidential election, has launched an effort to reassemble the so-called “Obama Coalition” to secure wavering African American support. The “Obama Coalition” refers to the African American, young, and highly educated white voters who played a key role in the 2008 Democratic presidential victory of Barack Obama. Faced with the challenge of regaining traditional support bases as some groups have expressed disillusionment with the current Democratic administration due to issues like inflation and the conflict in the Middle East.
President Biden’s efforts to reach out to the African American community have been thorough over the past few days. On the 19th (local time), he delivered a graduation congratulations speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Morehouse College is a historically black men’s college founded after the Civil War to educate freed slaves. It has produced prominent black figures such as Georgia State Senator Raphael Warnock, filmmaker Spike Lee, and actor Samuel L. Jackson.
President Biden began his outreach to the African American community by appearing on a black radio broadcast on the 16th, followed by a speech commemorating the 70th anniversary of the landmark ruling against racial segregation policies in public schools at the U.S. National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington on the 17th. He also hosted a dinner for the Divine Nine, a collective representation of major historically black fraternities and sororities, on the same day. Subsequently, on the 18th, he participated in a presidential campaign event in Atlanta, with plans to deliver a speech at a dinner hosted by a black organization in Detroit, Michigan after the graduation ceremony on the 19th.
During these events, President Biden criticized former President Trump while urging African American voters to unite behind him. At the campaign event on the 18th, he emphasized the threats posed by a potential second term of Trump and highlighted the reasons he believes he should win over Trump this year. Despite Georgia being a traditionally conservative state in the South, President Biden managed to win by a slim margin in the 2020 election after receiving overwhelming support among African American voters, who comprised 33% of the electorate.
However, it remains uncertain whether President Biden will be able to reassemble the “Obama Coalition” and secure a Democratic victory in the upcoming election. There is growing discontent among African American voters, particularly among the younger demographic who feel that President Biden has not fulfilled many of his campaign promises and are negatively impacted by rising inflation. The black unemployment rate, which reached a historic low of 4.8% in April last year, has since risen by about 1 percentage point over the past year. According to a Bloomberg poll on the 14th, 63% of African American voters support President Biden, a significant change from the 92% support he received in the 2020 election.
Tensions persist regarding the conflict in the Middle East. Some students at Morehouse College who oppose Biden administration’s support for Israel have pressured the school to cancel the event, with even some professors stating they will not attend. Flyers urging the audience not to applaud but to turn their backs during Biden’s speech have been distributed on campus. President David Thomas warned that if disruptive behavior occurs during the graduation ceremony, it will be halted.
As Caleb Chegayeh, a graduating student, told ABC News, “I do not agree with Biden’s policy on Palestine, I just want to graduate.”