Laura Williams attended one of the largest conferences of Black undergraduates in the country. Here’s what young Black voters think about the 2024 election.
President Joe Biden is hemorrhaging support from young Black voters. An April 2024 poll found that younger Black voters support Biden nearly twenty points less than older Black voters, underlining a particular challenge for Biden as he vies for reelection.
At the 2024 Black Solidarity Conference hosted by Yale University, one of the largest conferences of Black undergraduates in the country, participants discussed mental health, activism, art, and careers.
I asked 20 attendees about their views of the upcoming election. Of the 18 eligible voters in the group, 13 planned to vote. All were confident that they would not vote for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
“[Trump] is just a walking red flag—impeached twice, allegedly took government documents, created a terrorist attack at the Capitol,” said Mia Jackson, a student from New York City.
However, none believed that Biden had earned their vote. From the student debt crisis to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the young Black attendees had doubts about awarding Joe Biden with another presidential term.
Jamesly Saint Louis, a 22-year old Rhode Island School of Design student from Broward County, Florida, expressed frustration with inconsistencies between the federal government’s treatment of citizens versus corporations.
“I believe there was a lot of financial assistance given to corporations as well as businesses [during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic],” he said. “However, that same level of assistance has not been provided to former or current students.”
In June 2023, a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court blocked Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. The proposal intended to relieve up to $20,000 in student debt owed to the federal government per person. An estimated 20 million borrowers would have had their entire student debt balance forgiven.
Although Biden has since relieved up to $144 billion in debt for nearly 4 million students through other initiatives, the lack of a large-scale forgiveness plan still frustrates many of the students I spoke with.
“There hasn’t been enough information on either side to give a clear view on why it is that student loans have [been] obstructed,” Saint Louis said, “I don’t necessarily blame SCOTUS, and I don’t entirely blame President Biden.”
LaNaiah Frieson, a current college student in North Carolina, agreed. While she understands the difficulty of policy implementation, she said she was still disappointed by Biden’s stagnation on the student debt crisis.
“It’s not just [Biden’s] decision or his calls,” she said. “But the fact that [student debt cancellation] hasn’t been pushed for us as he said it was going to be is a little disappointing.”
This dissatisfaction pushed Frieson to examine third party candidates. While she predicts she will ultimately vote for the Democratic nominee, she said she will keep an eye out for a candidate who can put “action behind their words.”
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Democratic strategists fear that recent surges in migration from the Southern U.S. border could jeopardize Biden’s re-election bid. In February 2024, the Biden administration urged Congress to pass a bipartisan deal to restrict the asylum process and increase security at the border. The administration hoped Republicans would accept the restrictions as a compromise in exchange for providing foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine.
Although the bill failed in Congress due to a lack of Republican support, the administration’s rightward shift in immigration policy further alienated many young Black voters on the left.
“I am so disappointed in the way that Biden has continued to build Trump’s border,” said a 21-year old Wellesley student from Maryland, who asked to be identified as “B.” B referenced the administration’s October 2024 decision to allow border wall construction in Southern Texas.
The decision is one of many pushing B to consider other candidates. “I plan on voting,” they said, “I don’t know whether that will be for Joe Biden or for a third party.”
One student, Alyssa Michel, a senior at Yale from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, did find one bright spot in Biden’s immigration policy. As the descendant of Haitian immigrants, Michel approved of Biden’s humanitarian parole program, which makes it easier for Haitian asylum-seekers to immigrate to the U.S. However, this policy was only one of the few that the young Black students I interviewed approved of.
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“He lied about seeing beheaded babies,” said one student, who asked to remain anonymous. They referred to Biden’s October remarks after Hamas attacked 40 children on October 7th. The claim became representative of the information war surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict, as outlets differ on whether Biden’s statement is true, false or unconfirmed.
Since Hamas’ cross-border October 7th attack on Southwestern Israel killed over 1,200 Israelis, the Israeli war against Hamas has led to over 30,000 Palestinian deaths.
The anonymous student’s critique reflected a recurring frustration with the Biden administration amongst young Black voters.
“Social media has really changed the game because now you no longer can claim ignorance. It’s like it’s in your face constantly,” said Glorious Bambo, a Tufts student from Biden’s home state of Delaware. She criticized those who she believes try to downplay the war’s impacts on the Palestinian people.
“I, as a Black woman, think especially it’s so easy to align yourself with Palestinians,” said Maya Williams, a 20-year old Tufts student from New Jersey. “People of color […are] going through all these issues, like literal genocide.”
A sense of solidarity and shared experience of marginalization prompted some students to identify with the conflict in ways many older voters may not. It also contributed to a collective feeling that children at home and abroad are hurt most by the conflict.
“You [take] my tax money to kill kids,” said Darian Castillo, a fashion student from New York. “[That] money could be better spent in schools.”
“When Israel said, ‘children of darkness’ and stuff, that was a little bit crazy,” Castillo added, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s October 16th X post about the conflict. “What do you mean by that?”
The disconnect between a growing number of young Black voters and the Biden administration prompted many to reconsider a commonly used adage in the Black community: “vote blue no matter who.”
“I used to be in the ‘vote blue no matter who’ camp,” said B, “but… I can’t ask someone else, particularly someone who is being directly impacted by Biden’s policy to give their vote to Biden.”
Critiques of the U.S.’s stance on Israel amongst young Black voters may not just be a warning sign for President Biden—they could be the start of a re-examination of the broader Democratic Party.
“I have Palestinian friends,” B told a roundtable of voters, many of whom nodded in agreement. “I can never turn around and say [to] this person who is allowing the genocide of your people [that] you need to vote for them.”
The longstanding loyalty between the Black community and the Democratic Party is based, in part, on an idea that, as imperfect as Democrats are, they are always better than Republicans. For this election, that may not be enough.
“I’ve always known how bad Republicans can get, but I’ve never really known how bad Democrats could get,” said Rhoda Edwards, a 20-year old student from Atlanta. “I feel like this year, I really saw that.”
The concerns of these voters should alarm the Democratic Party. Young Black voters were a key part of President Biden’s victory in 2020, particularly in crucial states like Georgia. Notably, few of the individuals I interviewed ruled out casting their vote toward Biden. In our conversations, many seemed more focused on outlining a path through which Biden could earn back their votes.
“With Biden, I’d like more communication,” said Kenzai Sinclair, a 20-year old student from New York. “Donald Trump, everyone has their opinions on him, but he was communicating.”
Sinclair said he could be convinced to vote for Biden if he had a better understanding of his accomplishments. He hoped he would hear more from President Biden through television or social media advertisements.
Across the board, the young Black voters recommended that Biden communicate not just his successes, but also his failures.
“At least be real and be like, ‘Hey, it’s not going to work out,’” one said,. “Don’t just keep feeding on [the] air of a promise when it’s not going to be fulfilled because [you’re putting] these people into a hole, having these people have false hope.”
The voters at the conference were not willing to cut Biden loose out of frustration alone. Their perspective can give the Biden campaign a roadmap to shore up support among young Black voters.
For example, despite her disappointment with Joe Biden, Melody Emenydnu, a Georgetown student from Colorado, said that voting for Biden in the fall may still be a bridge to better options in the future.
“I think that still voting and trying to get the best out of the worst options is okay,” she said. “[In] another four years, then we can really get qualified candidates because maybe they haven’t aged up yet.”
Despite Maya Williams’ frustration with the Biden administration, she still asked a roundtable of friends a question that could save Joe Biden among young Black voters in November:
“Do you want to clean up for Biden or do you want to clean up after Trump?”