Romney Gets Zero Percent of the Black Vote

By Terry Shropshire
Aug 23, 2012
7:12 am

According to a new NBC/WSJ poll, Obama is working with 94 percent of the African American vote, while Mitt Romney can count on a statistical — wait for it — 0 percent of the African American vote, the New York Times reports.

Wow. Even former President George W. Bush did better than that. Both Bush presidents did.

Obama has faced harsh criticism from vocal quadrants of the African-American community for his positions on same sex marriages, his perceived hesitance to tackle issues that directly affect the black community, while pandering to Latino/Hispanic, Evangelicals and women as a voting block, it has not seemingly impacted blacks’ support for the 44th president of the United States.

Romney Gets Zero Percent of the Black Vote — Even the reviled George W. Bush managed to scrape up as high as 11 percent of the black vote in his reelection campaign

What else did the poll reveal? Let’s take a look:

The 12 key battleground states – Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin – Obama leads Romney by three points, 49 percent to 46 percent, a narrower edge than what Obama enjoyed just two months ago;
Obama continues to lead Romney among African Americans, 94 percent to 0 percent;
Obama leads with the Latino electorate by a 2-to-1 margin;
Obama leads voters under 35-years-old 52 percent to 41 percent;
And Obama leads over Romney with women 51 percent to 41 percent.

The poll unveiled good news for Romney as well:

Romney is ahead with whites 53 percent to 40 percent;
Romney leads Obama with rural voters 47 percent to 38 percent;
And Romney enjoys a sizable lead seniors (49 percent to 41 percent).

Other interesting facts:

The two presidential candidates are essentially even when it comes to the swing groups of suburban voters, Midwest residents and political independent;
As for Romney’s selection of Ryan as his running mate, which was made on Aug. 11, the poll suggests that – so far – the pick has had less of an impact on voters than previous running mates have had;
Twenty-two percent say Ryan makes them more likely to vote for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, while 23 percent say he makes them less likely to vote for Romney; 54 percent say the pick doesn’t affect their vote either way.
When Obama and Sen. John McCain picked their running mates four years ago, by comparison, Joe Biden gave Obama a boost (+8), Sarah Palin’s in 2008 (+9 percent), John Edwards’ in 2004 (+21), and Joe Lieberman’s in 2000 (+13). Ryan’s numbers come closest to Dick Cheney’s in 2000 (+2).