With polls across the country beginning to turn towards Republicans, Democrats are beginning to seriously worry that low voter turnout among minorities might doom them in next week’s midterm elections. But despite his continued appeal to minority voters, many Democrats are steering well clear of President Obama this year.
Even as many candidates are telling the White House that they don’t want Obama campaigning for them, the president has been appearing on many TV programs and speaking to radio stations across the country trying to campaign for Democrats anyway.
In a recent appearance on MSNBC, Obama said his feelings weren’t hurt by the many candidates who have tried to distance themselves from him.
“This isn’t about my feelings being hurt,” Obama told Al Sharpton. “These are folks who are strong allies and supporters of me. I tell them, I said, ‘You do what you need to do to win. I will be responsible for making sure that our voters turn out.’ “
The president has lost a lot of support among Americans, with his approval rating being far below the comfortable 50 percent margin. The latest Gallup poll shows Obama’s approval at a low 42 percent. And while still being relatively popular with minorities, the president has lost ground with them as well.
Another poll, for instance, shows that Obama’s support among Hispanics is suffering.
Youth support for President Obama is down 4% from earlier this year, and he now stands at a net minus 10% disapproval, with just 43% of millennials supporting him. A significant racial gap has emerged within the millennial voting bloc as well, with just 31% of whites approving of Obama, as opposed to 78% of blacks.
Speaking of millennials, a Harvard poll released this week shows that voters between 18 and 29 years of age are switching their support to the GOP.
With census records that show only 4 in 10 black Americans bother to vote, as Election Day nears the White House and the Democrat Party has found it necessary to put money into pushing minorities to get to the polls at a time when they may have thought they could focus on specific candidates instead.
The president has been doing as many interviews on black-owned radio and TV networks as he can ahead of the upcoming November 4 elections.
In one such interview, Obama scolded blacks for not voting. “You can’t complain about, ‘Oh they are trying to mess with us or trying to take away our vote,’ but then half of us or more don’t even bother to try to vote,” he said.
But showing signs of desperation, some Democrat campaigns are going for the throat, using racism to frighten African Americans to get to the polls. In a last ditch effort to bring voters to the polls, Democrats are hoping to make the midterm elections about racism and Ferguson.
Several get out the vote efforts in Georgia and North Carolina, for instance, are using sharp racebaiting tactics to get black voters to the polls.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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