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Voters Say Trump Better for Blacks Than Obama, But More Is Needed

With unemployment for black Americans at an historic low, voters continue to believe President Trump has been better for young blacks than President Obama. But voters also still feel the government could do more and don’t think Trump’s rotten relationship with black members of Congress helps.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 33% of Likely U.S. Voters think life for young black Americans has gotten better since Trump’s election. Slightly more (36%) say life is worse for young blacks now, while 22% rate it as about the same. These findings have changed very little from a year ago. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

By comparison, in July 2016, Obama’s final year in office, just 13% said life for young black Americans had gotten better since the election of the nation’s first black president.

Only 10% of voters believe the government has done too much to improve conditions for young blacks. A plurality (45%) says the government has done too little. Thirty-one percent (31%) consider the level of action as about right. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided.

These findings, too, are virtually changed from January of last year. But in 2014, 22% felt the government had already done too much for young black Americans, while 27% said it had done too little.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 30 and June 2, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

Just one-in-four voters (25%) rate race relations in America today as good or excellent, and only 20% think they’re getting better.

Some of Trump’s bitterest enemies in Congress are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and just 11% of voters think the deteriorating relationship between the president and black members of Congress is good for black America. Forty-six percent (46%) still think these bad relations are bad for blacks in America, although that’s down from 55% in January 2018. Twenty-nine percent (29%) say it has no impact, but 14% are not sure.

More than 60% of Democrats think life for young black Americans has gotten worse under Trump and that the government needs to do more to help. Republicans disagree, while unaffiliated voters are more closely divided.

But Democrats (60%) also feel much more strongly than Republicans (32%) and unaffiliateds (44%) that the deteriorating relationship between the president and black members of Congress is bad for black America.

Among black voters, 59% think life for young blacks has gotten worse under Trump, and 66% say the government has done too little to improve their conditions. Sixty-eight percent (68%) feel, though, that the bad relations between Trump and black members of Congress are also bad for black America.

The Trump administration has rolled back race-based Obama-era school discipline policies, arguing that they have led to more lax discipline overall and a rise in school violence. Americans overwhelmingly agree that a student’s racial background should not be a factor in discipline.

Most voters think America is a good place for blacks and other minorities, and a sizable number suspects that many alleged hate crimes here are hoaxes like the one recently staged by TV actor Jussie Smollett.

Seventy-one percent (71%) think most politicians only raise racial issues to get elected, not to address real problems.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 30 and June 2, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

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