Black support for President Barack Obama remains strong, though not as strong as it once was.
A new Gallup poll found that just as Obama’s approval numbers have dropped among the overall population, they’ve sank a bit among blacks. The numbers are based on Gallup’s daily tracking polls, which includes about 15,000 interviews with blacks from January through November,as well as more in prior years.
Obama’s approval among blacks has consistently been about 40 percentage points above the national average, and is at about 84 percent. He has won more than 90 percent of the black vote in his two presidential bids.
But just as Obama is losing strength with younger people overall, younger blacks are also more wary.
“Obama's support has been dropping disproportionately among younger blacks in recent years,” the Gallup analysis found. In his first two years, Obama’s approval among 18 to 29 year old blacks was slightly lower than his approval among older blacks.
But this year, his approval among those younger blacks is 80 percent, compared to 87 percent among those 50 to 64 and 88 percent among those 65 and up.