Sunita Sohrabji and Pilar Marrero Ethnic Media Services
In a country that is polarized and wounded by COVID-19 and divisive leadership, a massive voter turnout resulted in a close election where Democrat Joe Biden was propelled to the finish line by large majorities of voters of African descent.
On Saturday, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were projected winners in the 2020 election, relegating Donald Trump to a single term, which he refused to concede; subsequently, his lawyers sought to legally maneuver to argue voter fraud.
The Democratic presidential nomination achieved its goal primarily because communities of African descent rejected the Trump Administration by wide margins, explained experts who discussed the numbers, history and motivations for the elections of communities of African descent in the United States at a media briefing with Ethnic Media Services.
Polls on the eve of the election and exit polls confirmed that the majority of white voters voted for President Donald Trump, but that Asian-American, Latino and African-American voters turned out in record numbers to oust the president and propel the first woman of African descent into the White House.
According to the Latino Decisions election eve poll, 56% of whites voted for Trump. A CNN exit poll found a similar number: 57% of whites voted for the current president.
However, voters of African descent told a different story. According to the LD poll, 70% of Latinos, 89% of African Americans, 68% of Asians and 60% of Native Americans voted for Biden.
"I want to thank people of African descent and their communities for saving our democracy," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice at the Nov. 6 briefing hosted by Ethnic Media Services.
"As a white male, I come from a community that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. And, if it weren't for the African-American, Latino and Asian-American Pacific Islander community, we would not be celebrating the victory we are celebrating today," Sharry said.
It was a very close election, a stalemate that lasted from Tuesday, Nov. 3, until Saturday morning, Nov. 7, when the official numbers made it clear that Biden-Harris had won the 270 electoral votes needed.
The polarization and the states in which she outpolled Biden made it clear that Democratic votes by the African-American community played an important role in the results.
Stephen Nuño-Perez, a senior analyst with Latino Decisions, whose firm conducted a poll on the eve of the election among ethnic voters in key states, said that "it is extremely difficult to win an election when you have mobilized minorities and Latinos in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Albuquerque."
"Voters in the Latino community were critical to turning Arizona around," said Nuno Perez of Latino Decisions, pointing to counties like Maricopa, Pima and Yuma, which have significant Latino populations.
Latino voters also stood out in Florida, delivering victories for Biden in Miami-Dade, Tampa Bay, Orlando and Broward County. In Miami, Cuban Americans gave their support to Trump.
Nuño warned about taking some outliers, like the Cuban vote in Miami-Dade and a couple of counties near the border in Texas where Trump did much better with Latinos, to project that into a broader narrative.
"Yes, Latinos are not a monolith, and yes, they are a monolith, they respond to certain kinds of messages and, nationally, seventy percent of Latinos voted for Biden. That's a clear pattern," he said.
Theodore Johnson, senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, said a summer of racial justice protests coupled with disproportionate COVID-19 numbers and record levels of unemployment in communities of African descent drove black voter turnout in record numbers to remove Donald Trump from office.
"That explains why we're seeing Atlanta swing to Michigan, Philadelphia swing to Pennsylvania, Milwaukee swing to Wisconsin, and Detroit swing to Michigan," he said. "That's the enthusiasm and the power of the African-American vote."
"Overall, voters of African descent were pragmatic," Johnson said, "pointing to South Carolina where they opted for Joe Biden over Kamala Harris or Corey Booker." "They chose the candidate they thought had the best chance of winning over white voters."
Johnson attributed the small increase in African-American males voting for Trump to African-American Republicans who had chosen to vote for the first African-American president in 2008 and 2012 and were now returning to the Republican Party.
Asian Americans turned out in significant numbers for the 2020 elections, said John Yang, president and CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. About 300,000 voted for the first time.
"Exit polls and pre-election polls showed there was a lot more enthusiasm to vote," Yang said. Between 65 and 70 percent of AAPI voters supported Biden, and 30 percent voted for Trump, which is consistent with voting patterns in 2012 and 2016.
While one-third of Asian Americans live in the 10 most hotly contested states, it would be easy to attribute the margin of victory in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania to the AAPI vote. But Yang said it was the common good that united African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and Asian Americans that gave Biden the margin of victory in those states.
Yang recalled June 16, 2015, when Trump rode down an escalator at Trump Towers to announce his candidacy for The White House: "That was a defining moment for me and it changed the trajectory of my career. When he talked about illegals being rapists, gangsters and criminals, he was talking about me because, at one point, I was an undocumented immigrant."
Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today, spoke of the impact of the Native American vote, noting that a large number of Native Americans ran for elected office and that next year's Congress will hold a caucus with three Republicans and three Democrats. "This will put a bipartisan spin on Native issues," he said.
Native Americans were also elected to state legislatures, including Arizona and Kansas.
Sharry, of America's Voice, said the massive minority vote was also a rejection of Trump's cornerstone issue of xenophobia and racism.
"The American people were forced by Donald Trump and his extremism to decide, and they decided to side with refugees and immigrants. This is a statement of what a multiracial majority in America said through this election. They said, "We want to be a welcoming country. We don't like Trump's separation of families."
