Former President Donald Trump's reported success with a key voting bloc has political experts raising skeptical eyebrows, according to a new report.
The narrative that Trump has been garnering surging support among Black men under 50 doesn't hold up under closer examination of the polls, experts told Salon on Saturday.
“I’m a little suspect about how much Trump is actually going to get in the final vote," Clarence Lusane, a Howard University professor of political science, told Salon. "If history is an indicator, then these last-minute Black voters tend to go with Democrats.”
Salon asked experts to analyze data such as an NAACP poll that found 26 percent of Black men under 50 say they support Trump and an Associated Press/NORC survey that found that 22 percent of Black voters under 44 say Trump would make a good president.
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"If these polling results are accurate, it suggests that Trump has gained some support among Black men," Salon reported. "It’s crucial, however, to keep the size of this shift in perspective."
Salon argued this represented just a modest increase from 2020 when exit polls put him at 19 percent support among Black male voters.
Lusane agreed, arguing Harris’ rise has been a decisive turning point and Trump hasn't done himself any favors with false claims that Haitian immigrants eat cats and dogs.
“I think Trump as a threat to Democracy still needs to be underscored,” Lusane said. “This is someone that represents an extremist view with an extremist movement behind it.”
John Culverius, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, told Salon readers to beware “a much wider margin of error” in crosstab poll shifts.
“I remain skeptical of potential large shifts in subgroups in the electorate," Culverius said. "Especially when the election, up until two months ago, was a rerun of 2020."