By Lamin Njie, US Election 2020 virtual reporting tour participant
African Americans who voted for President Donald Trump in Tuesday’s election stood at 11 percent – a three percentage points increase from 2016, it has been revealed.
Tuesday’s unprecedented election has seen Trump and his rival Joe Biden barely have any issues at all in terms of their faithful constituencies but a winner is still not known as counting continued and stretched into Wednesday in key battleground states.
Hundreds of thousands of African Americans took part in the election with 11 percent voting for incumbent President Donald Trump.
According to renowned public opinion pollster John Zogby, 18 percent of black men in America voted for Trump with the overall black vote for him standing at 11 percent. Joe Biden ran away with the black vote by 87 percent.
“Number one, the criminal justice reform under Donald Trump and the fact that some of the harsh penalties that have taken place among blacks, people of colour in the justice system was a factor. Number two is the hip-hop factor. You have some leading hip-hop people come out for Donald Trump,” Zogby who is the founder of Zogby Strategies told foreign reporters on Wednesday, adding hip hop stars endorsing Trump prompted many black men to vote for him.
The lead-up to the election saw a number of rappers including Lil Wayne publicly declaring their support for Mr Trump.
Also, there were some black men who said they were better off than they had been in terms of their economic condition, Zogby said while discussing results from exit polls.
