Black voters showed their power in 2023 elections. Here’s why they could pick the president in 2024.

A core part of the Democratic coalition, Black Americans, appears to be more in play than ever after a recent poll showed former President Donald Trump pulling support from a shocking 22% of Black voters in six key battleground states.

Though President Joe Biden won 92% of Black support in 2020, a September Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that only 66% of Black voters would choose him if the 2024 election were held that month. 

But the Nov. 7 election results show that Black voters are still performing for Democratic candidates and issues.

Black voters played an important role in enshrining abortion rights in the Ohio state constitution and in flipping the Virginia House to Democratic control, while rejecting a Black Republican candidate for governor in Kentucky last week, demonstrating their enduring electoral strength even as questions emerge over this key group's support for Biden.

They were crucial “certainly in Ohio and in Kentucky, and in Virginia, in other places as well," Democratic strategist Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, told USA TODAY. "That obviously has implications for 2024.”

Here's a look at what this month's election results might say about the issues driving Black voters heading into next year's presidential race.

'We awakened the sleeping giant'

Ohio voters on Nov. 7 approved a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights until viability − typically around 24 weeks gestation − and the right to access contraception, fertility treatment and other services, in a defeat for the state's Republican leadership. 

More than 8 in 10 Black voters − a bigger proportion than white and Latino voters − supported the measure, according to an NBC News exit poll.

”I think what this shows is that we awakened the sleeping giant in Ohio,” Prentiss Haney, co-executive director of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, told USA TODAY. Black people make up 11% of the state's voting population.

Ohio's abortion result came after Republicans tried to raise the threshold for amending the state constitution from 50% to 60% this year, and against a backdrop of increasingly restrictive voting measures.

In January, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill requiring all voters to present photo identification, limiting Ohio counties to one ballot drop box each and shortening the deadline to request an absentee ballot.

“What we saw last night is of course an issue that really matters to the Black community that is finally on the ballot − that they didn't have to wait for a politician to deliver a policy for them, they could deliver it through direct democracy for themselves,” Haney said after the referendum passed.

This month's abortion victory could pave the way for Democratic gains in 2024.

Next year, an anti-gerrymandering amendment will appear on the ballot that, if passed, would replace the Republican-dominated Ohio Redistricting Commission with a bipartisan citizen-led redistricting body.

"I think we're going to see historic levels of Black turnout in Ohio because there'll be another issue that they know actually creates more power for themselves," Haney said, echoing other experts.

A surprise result in Virginia

In Virginia, the threat of possible new abortion restrictions under a Republican governor and GOP-controlled legislature helped drive an upset that saw Democrats hold the Senate and retake the state House − both with razor-thin margins − in a blow to Gov. Glenn Youngkin. 

Youngkin had promised to institute a 15-week abortion ban − with exceptions for rape, incest and severe medical emergencies − if Republicans captured the Democratic-controlled state Senate. Instead, they lost the House and Minority Leader Don Scott is set to become the first Black House speaker in Virginia history.

Experts said detailed turnout data wasn't yet available. But Democrat Nadarius Clark, who won in a newly drawn House district outside Norfolk, told USA TODAY he saw “surprising turnout.” One heavily Black precinct, where Clark's campaign had expected between 400 and 500 voters, saw a turnout of more than 800, he said. Clark beat his Republican opponent by over 1,500 votes.

According to an estimate by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, voter turnout exceeded expectations in 13 of the 18 precincts in Clark's district where Black people make up more than 40% of registered voters.

“We typically see lower turnout in Virginia, but ... abortion rights and women's reproductive rights drove more people in what we call an off-year election than any other election,” Robert N. Barnette Jr., president of the Virginia NAACP, told USA TODAY.

Barnette said Youngkin's abortion threat struck a cord with Black voters in a state where Black mothers are 2.3 times more likely to die from childbirth than white mothers.

“That issue ... really carried the day for the Democrats here in Virginia,” he said.

Rejecting a Black Republican in the Bluegrass State

In deep-red Kentucky, incumbent Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, turned back a challenge from Republican state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who had campaigned with Trump's endorsement.

While Kentucky Republicans swept races for attorney general and secretary of state, Beshear beat Cameron by more than 60,000 votes.

Cameron, the first Black candidate elected to statewide office in Kentucky, alienated many Black voters by declining to charge several Louisville police officers in the fatal shooting of a emergency room technician named Breonna Taylor during a botched 2020 raid.

The Black Voters Matter Fund's political action committee released a radio ad during the campaign blasting Cameron for his investigation into Taylor’s death. "All skinfolk ain't kinfolk," the ad said, describing Cameron as "the same man who refused to seek justice for Breonna Taylor." Cameron called the ad "racist."

While campaign officials say it's too early to know how Black voters turned out compared with whites, clues point to an increase. In Jefferson County, which includes Louisville, the state's biggest city, Black Voters Matter Fund estimated voter turnout was 41%, compared with the state average of 38%. Jefferson County is almost a quarter Black. Black voters are 8.7% of the Kentucky electorate.

Election featured Black firsts

The 2023 election also served up some firsts for Black candidates and voters.

In Rhode Island, Democrat Gabriel Amo, a former deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Biden administration, made history as the state’s first Black member of Congress. And Philadelphia voters elected Cherelle Parker as the city’s first Black woman mayor. 

But even amid the promising results in different states, Melvin Prince Johnakin, a vice president at the Philadelphia NAACP, was stark in describing the economic issues that could keep Black voters in his city from the polls next year in a critical swing state.

“When you're going to ask someone who cannot live in their homes − who are homeowners whose property taxes were increased 42% − to be an effective voter when they can't even be an effective taxpayer ... it poses a big problem,” he said.

“I don't think a presidential person who pops in and only meets with millionaires − never traveled to the urban community, never traveled to small streets, has a motorcade only to stop at some of the richest places and hobnob with the richest people − that may not help him in 2024,” Johnakin said.

Johnakin said that he’s witnessed a growing number of Black men vote Republican, even as Black women continue to lean Democratic in Philadelphia.

"It's going to be a difficult battle inside of Pennsylvania," he said.

Deep South disappointment

Mississippi held its first governor’s race since a 2020 referendum repealed a Jim Crow-era provision of the state constitution that diluted the power of Black voters in statewide races. Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves topped Democratic challenger Brandon Presley, 51.6% to 47%. 

Black people make up 40% of Mississippi's population, but 90% of white voters vote Republican. More than 10% of the state's voters, and 15% of Black voters have been purged from the rolls thanks to Mississippi's unyielding felony disenfranchisement law. 

Though state data hasn’t yet been released, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee estimates that Black voter turnout decreased in this year's race compared with 2019 − as did overall statewide turnout.

However, a series of mishaps on Election Day may have played a role. In Hinds County, home to Jackson, the state capital, a ballot shortage left many residents unable to vote. There were also reports of improper voter purges ahead of Election Day. 

“Regardless of what the outcome of the election would have been, you know, Mississippi is one of the hottest states in the country. We voted. We have to do everything we can to both change laws and create awareness,” said Charles V. Taylor Jr., executive director of the Mississippi NAACP.

Though the presidential race is a year away, Shropshire said that the 2023 results are telling candidates which policies are animating Black voters.

“In the last three election cycles, Black voters have been really clear about what's at stake for America, what's at stake for the Black community, and they've shown up in the ways that they've needed to,” Shropshire said.