Biden's effort to win over Black voters failing, ‘needs an overhaul’: column
New York Times opinion columnist Charles Blow warned President Biden that he risks letting former President Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election if he does not better appeal to Black voters.
"This is the bind Biden is in when appealing to young Black voters: how to get them to measure him and his record against the alterative and see that this year's election will be between a candidate who may disappoint and another intending to destroy," Blow wrote in an op-ed published on Wednesday.
The op-ed, headlined "Biden's appeal to Black voters needs an overhaul," advised Biden that he could not lose the support of Black voters if he hoped to beat Trump in 2024.
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Blow criticized Biden for a speech he gave in Charlestone, South Carolina at Mother Emanuel, a historic Black church.
Biden was shouted down during his speech by protesters at the event over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
As the president spoke during a campaign event at the site of the 2015 massacre where authorities said an admitted white supremacist shot and killed nine Black worshipers, a protester interrupted, shouting, "If you really care about the lives lost here, then you should honor the lives and call for a cease-fire in Palestine."
"Cease-fire now! Cease-fire now!" the demonstrators chanted, as Biden insisted, "That's all right."
Blow argued that Biden's speech was "a chance to offer a vision for his second term, but there was hardly any vision in it."
He continued: "It focused on what his administration has done and not what it will do. It landed like someone coming to collect a payment for services rendered rather than to celebrate victories with a partner before mapping out future plans."
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That is a major weakness for Biden's campaign, especially among Black voters, Blow wrote.
"And yet concern about Biden among many voters, particularly Black voters, centers on a few key issues -- economic struggles, regardless of what economic indicators say; a handful of tent-pole promises, such as enhancing voting rights protections, that Republicans prevented Biden from fulfilling; and, for younger Black voters, his handling of the Israel-Hamas war," Blow wrote.
Blow added that Biden's success in the 2024 presidential election hinges on his "attempts to reach out to Black voters, a constituency from which he desperately needs enthusiastic support but that is going soft on him and, polls have shown, a part of which may even be drifting to Trump."
Biden's support among the Black community has shrunk in recent years, with Fox News polling indicating his approval slid 25% since 2021. He once stood at 87% approval, but that number declined to 62% in 2023.
The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Fox News' Danielle Wallace and Bailee Hill contributed to this report.