A generational divide splits Black voters ahead of Biden-Trump rematch

One of the more noticeable polling shifts between the last presidential campaign and this one is among Black voters.

While they remain overwhelmingly aligned with President Joe Biden, his level of support is lower than in 2020. And Donald Trump’s Black support is often clocking in at levels that would outpace all previous Republican nominees in the modern era.

These findings have produced understandable skepticism, fueled by red herring polls in past campaigns suggesting surprising levels of Black GOP support that failed to materialize on Election Day. Dating back to the 1964 presidential race, no Republican presidential candidate has exceeded 12% Black support in exit polls, with most failing to reach double-digits.

But if you average the results of every high-quality, independent poll released since April 1, here’s how Black voters are currently breaking — and how they were breaking over the same period in 2020:

It’s important to note that in most individual polls, the sample size of Black voters is generally low, given that they typically make up just over 10 percent of the electorate. That translates to a considerable margin of error in any given poll. Nonetheless, the averages, which fold in subsample results from multiple polls, do suggest a change from four years ago.

And that change appears to be generational. Breakdowns of Black voters by age are available from several recent polls; and each shows a striking gap between younger and older Black voters:

Again, these reflect relatively small sample sizes, although the NBC News and CNN numbers are from “merged data” — datasets that combine the Black voter subsamples from the two national polls that each organization has sponsored this year, doubling the sample of