Black voters deliver a GOP reckoning
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Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Keisha Lance Bottoms (2nd R) appears onstage during her election night watch party in Atlanta. Bottoms defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson to become the nation's first Black woman elected governor. Photo: Paras Griffin/Getty Images
President Trump won historic levels of support from Black men in 2024. Two years later, those gains appeared to evaporate as Republicans suffered their worst midterm defeat in 50 years.
Why it matters: Democrats feared the Supreme Court's decision weakening the Voting Rights Act would threaten their political future in the South. Instead, Black voters helped deliver historic Democratic victories in Texas and Georgia, with a potential upset brewing in Mississippi.
By the numbers: Roughly nine in 10 Black voters backed Democratic House candidates Tuesday, according to the AP Voter Poll.
- Only about one in 10 Black men backed Republicans. Roughly one-quarter supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election, according to AP's analysis.
- For context, a separate 2024 national House exit poll found Black voters favored Democrats 84%–14%. Black men split 75%–24%, while Black women backed Democrats 90%–8%.
State of play: Two Democrats who faced questions about their support among Black voters won crucial Senate races.
- Michigan: Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers, becoming the nation's first Muslim senator. A late-October poll showed El-Sayed drawing 87% support among likely Black voters.
- Texas: Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton after courting Black voters who overwhelmingly backed Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary. An August Texas Southern University poll showed Talarico leading Paxton 79%–12% among likely Black voters.
Zoom in: Talarico built commanding margins in Harris County, home to Houston, and Dallas County, both home to large Black electorates, according to AP county-level returns.
Zoom out: Black voters helped elect former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms as the first Black woman governor in U.S. history.
- About nine in 10 Black men voted for Bottoms, compared with roughly three-quarters who supported Kamala Harris in Georgia in 2024, according to the AP Voter Poll. Black women's support remained around 90%.
- In majority-Black Clayton County, Bottoms received nearly 86,000 votes — about 13,600 more than Democrat Stacey Abrams received in the 2022 governor's race, AP reported.
In Mississippi's U.S. Senate election, Democrat Scott Colom built commanding leads over Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in heavily Black Hinds County, home to Jackson, and majority-Black Claiborne and Jefferson counties, according to unofficial overnight returns.
- Colom held a narrow statewide lead Thursday morning, with thousands of ballots outstanding and the race still uncalled.
The intrigue: Florida Republican Byron Donalds became the state's first Black governor, but most Black voters backed Democrat David Jolly.
- About one-quarter of Black men voted for Donalds, compared with just one in 10 Black women, according to the AP Voter Poll.
Between the lines: Election returns don't prove a nationwide surge in Black turnout or establish that anger over civil rights rollbacks motivated voters. But early voting offered signs of heightened Black participation in Georgia.
- Black voters accounted for 32.4% of Georgia's early ballots, up from 30.2% in 2022, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis. The figures don't establish whether the overall Black turnout rate increased.
Voting rights concerns may also have motivated some Black voters.
- A Democratic-aligned August Data for Progress survey in Mississippi found 43% of Black voters more enthusiastic than usual about the midterms, compared with 31% of white voters.
- Another 53% of Black voters said politicians making voting harder, gerrymandering and spreading false election claims made participation feel more important.
Worth noting: Yolanda Renee King, the 18-year-old granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., cast her first ballot Tuesday in Atlanta.
The bottom line: Democrats needed Black voters to win.
- Tuesday's results suggest they held together a coalition that looked vulnerable after 2024 — potentially giving Black voters more leverage heading into 2028.
