Standing outside an Aldi store in West Philadelphia with bags of groceries, Aaron Bryant announced he had not voted. But if he did, he probably would have voted for President-elect Donald Trump. Reason?
“I thought he was the best person for the job,” Bryant said, resident of West Philadelphia. “[A]and the economy was also much better while he was in office.”
On Election Day, Trump’s most loyal demographic base in Philadelphia remained in the city’s predominantly white neighborhoods and neighborhoods, where he won nearly 30% of the vote. However, this does not discount the city-wide shift in the color of the city’s districts to the right, a move that has been taking place since 2016.
This right-wing trend was not solely due to increased Republican support among voters of color, but also reflected low voter turnout in majority-Black neighborhoods such as the Mill Creek neighborhood in West Philadelphia, home to an Aldi grocery store. Bryant has never voted, even though, as a black man, he is part of one of the most loyal Democratic bases that the party has failed to win.
Democrats underperformed in 649 of Philadelphia’s 688 Black-majority precincts, while Trump increased his vote share in 635 Black-majority precincts compared to 2020, according to an Inquirer analysis of election results.
Turnout in black neighborhoods was also the lowest in the city. Of the approximately 22,600 people who did not vote, about 80% lived in majority-black districts.
Across the city, Trump enjoyed greater support because of racial disparities in less affluent neighborhoods that had fewer college graduates. And Trump’s marginal gains in support in some majority-Black districts, coupled with lower-than-expected turnout, helped him perform better in Black districts.
The biggest drops in turnout were in West Philadelphia and parts of North Philadelphia, which largely meant fewer votes for Democrats. In three of the five largest predominately black constituencies where turnout fell, Trump increased his vote share without actually winning any more.
There were 210 fewer votes cast in Mill Creek. There, Trump’s vote share increased from 2.9% to 5%, an increase of 67 votes compared to 2020.
Several residents shopping in the area suggested that one of the reasons they did not vote was distrust of the government; they felt that the solution had already arrived. They also pointed to concerns about transgender rights and Harris’ racial identity – two social issues over which the Republican Party attacked Harris – that they believed kept them from voting for Democrats or spawned them for Trump.
“I don’t think citizens should even decide who holds office, so I just don’t waste my time,” Cequora Jones, 34, said.
Jones has never voted and says none of the candidates convinced her to go to the polls. But: “If I voted,” she said, “I would probably vote for Trump.” Jones cited social issues such as disapproval of unisex bathrooms as Trump’s “good point.”
Evervine Brown, 31, hasn’t voted since 2012, when she helped elect former President Barack Obama. She said she did not vote in the election, even though loved ones urged her to vote for Harris.
“I felt like I didn’t want to vote for her because I really didn’t know her like that,” Brown said. She questioned Harris’ race, a move introduced by Trump and repeated by conservatives to discredit Harris among black voters. Harris’s father is Jamaican and her mother is Indian.
Neither Jones nor Brown were surprised by Trump’s victory. The same was not true for Stephen Waters, who voted for vice president.
“She was kind of thrown into the race for office when Biden got sick,” Waters, 30, said of Harris’ candidacy, “and Trump has been in charge for a long time. So even though he is not very popular with people,… many ordinary people did not know who Kamala was.”
Until official voter rolls are published, usually several weeks after the election, it is difficult to assess how voting behavior differed by gender at the constituency level. But in Pennsylvania, 26% of black men, or more than a quarter, voted for Trump according to exit poll which examines voters leaving polling stations. Seventy-two percent voted for Harris. In contrast, only 3% of black women in Pennsylvania voted Republican.
Trump’s approval among black men in Pennsylvania was higher than national averagewhere 21% of Black men voted Republican. It’s also a stunning jump in support for the president-elect compared to 2020, when exit polls showed Trump gaining support by just 10% of black men in Pennsylvania.
Black men who voted for Trump locally gave a range of reasons why they believed he increased his vote share in the city – from perceptions of an ineffective Democratic Party to inflation to immigration.
Carnel Harley, 51, leader of the 13th District Republican Party, said Trump’s signing of a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill called the First Step Act, which shortens federal sentences and aims to improve prison conditions, helped Black America. He added that Harris’ ties to President Joe Biden’s administration have damaged her reputation.
“What else did the previous administration do for the black community [Juneteenth]– Harley asked.
John McAuley is 36 years old and a delivery truck driver conservative podcaster. He said his top priorities in electing president are reducing inflation and limiting immigration.
“I think this time black men chose politics over race and stopped listening to the mainstream media and started getting a lot of their information through the X,” said McAuley, of Mount Airy.
Economic experts say Trump’s two biggest proposals, sweeping tariffs and mass deportations of illegal immigrants, would trigger inflation. Asked about experts saying mass deportations would likely lead to inflation, McAuley said it was also a matter of national security.
“If you’re trying to compare the cost of mass deportations, you can’t assign a financial burden to national security,” he said.
Shawn Gamble Jr. said sociocultural issues may have influenced more black men to vote for Trump or influenced black voters to sit out the election altogether. Gamble, who voted for Trump and is an officer of the Federation of Black Conservatives, said a family member who did not vote at all posted a conservative ad criticizing Harris’ support for transgender people.
“The fact that that was the first thing she said to me, when I talked to her, I was like, ‘Wow, that stuck,'” Gamble, 26, said. “So it could have been a whole social and cultural war.”
Gamble also said concerns about the economy and immigration helped Trump.
Gamble, a Logan native who has lived in Reading since 2016, said Trump’s outreach to voters of color, and Black voters in particular, has been exceptional.
“When I started, it wasn’t that diverse,” Gamble said of the Republican Party. “And to see how much he has grown, it is beautiful.”
This election showed that people don’t necessarily vote based on politics, said Timothy Welbeck, director of the Center on Anti-Racism at Temple University.
“This election was largely not decided by politics or potential solutions, because if you listen closely to President-elect Trump’s rallies and speeches, he has made very few policy proposals,” Welbeck said.
“In many ways, the electorate has shown that what they think they expect from elected officials is not necessarily what they will choose when they walk into the ballot box,” Welbeck later added.
D’Andra Orey, who studies Black political attitudes and is a political science professor at Jackson State University, said Black people distrust the political establishment and Trump’s positioning as a political outsider helped the Republican candidate.
Orey studies intraracial attitudes – that is, Black attitudes towards Black people – and found that internalized racism, combined with sexism, pushed Black men away from Harris.
“From Mammy to Jezebel to Sapphire,” he said, “all these stereotypes associated with black women influence people’s attitudes toward black women.”
Orey and Welbeck repeatedly noted that black men continued to overwhelmingly support Harris.
“I think most of the post-election analysis has been running away from the fact that President-elect Trump’s rhetoric, message and propaganda appealed to about half of the white population in this country,” Welbeck said. “In the end, it all comes down to this.”
