Why Black Voters' Affection For Joe Biden May Not Save His Candidacy

DETROIT ― Kermit Williams is a political organizer with the Oakland Forward Action Fund, a grassroots organization that focuses on the Black community in some of Detroit’s northern suburbs. Following Joe Biden’s dismal performance in last month’s presidential debate, Williams said he felt pretty rattled — until he spoke to his mother.

“She put it in really good perspective for me,” Williams told HuffPost on Wednesday. “She said Joe Biden has never been the most phenomenal speaker, but he’s got phenomenal morals.”

This is the sort of sentiment that Biden is counting on to save his embattled presidential candidacy. With an increasingly loud chorus of pundits, activists and elected Democrats calling on Biden to step aside, the president has repeatedly cited his popularity with the party’s core voting groups. At the top of the list are Black voters, who have played the role of political savior before.

Back in the 1990s, Black voters and their representatives in Congress rallied behind Bill Clinton when other party leaders were ready to cut him loose after the revelations about his sexual relationship with a White House intern. Much more recently, Black voters gave Biden a critical boost when he was nearly vanquished in the 2020 Democratic primaries ― and then, in the general election, when Biden nearly lost his lead against then-President Donald Trump.

On Friday, Biden is set to hold a rally at a Detroit high school. It’s a chance to get media coverage in Michigan, the fourth swing state he’ll have visited since June’s debate debacle. It’s also a chance to showcase Biden’s support in what was historically and may still be the nation’s largest majority-Black city.

But support for Biden isn’t the same as a conviction that he