Clinton challenge: Black voters in North

Associated Press

MILWAUKEE

This month has brought a new challenge for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign: Black voters in Rust Belt states aren’t as solidly behind her as they’ve been in the South.

It led to the Democratic front-runner’s surprise loss in Michigan, where about a third of black voters supported Bernie Sanders, and it nearly cost her Missouri, where African-Americans voted more like their counterparts across the Midwest than in the South. Now, it could foreshadow vulnerability for Clinton in Wisconsin, the next Northern battleground primary.

What’s behind the trend? Exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research reveal a possible answer:

Black voters up North have appeared more likely than black voters down South to say race relations in the U.S. have recently gotten worse. And though large majorities of African-Americans in both regions trust Clinton to handle the issue, those in the Midwest have been much more likely to say they trust Sanders.

Rust Belt blacks live closer to some of the major racial conflicts of recent years – the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; the police shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland; and the tainted water crisis in heavily black Flint, Mich. And they are well-positioned to turn out and express their dismay at the polls.

“Absolutely, there are enough to make a difference,” said Bradley Thurman, 66, an African-American cafe owner in Milwaukee, noting that black support twice helped tip Wisconsin toward Barack Obama, even as many other races in the state have gone in favor of Republicans.

Down South, Clinton has routinely picked up support from 8 in 10 black voters or more. But in areas farther north across the Midwest where manufacturing has contracted and factories have closed, support has been as low as Missouri’s 67 percent. That primary election had been too close to call until Sanders conceded Thursday, giving Clinton a 1,531-vote win.

About 7 in 10 black voters backed Clinton in Ohio and Illinois, less than in the South but not enough of a drop to deny her those states on a day when she also picked up victories in Florida and North Carolina.

The tight vote in Missouri – a swing state where residents long have debated whether they’re Midwestern or Southern – underscored feelings that could help keep Sanders afloat.

“I didn’t like the statement Clinton made calling our kids ‘super predators,’” said Syreeta Myers, 42, who is black.

Myers’ only child, VonDerrit Myers, was killed in St. Louis in 2014 by a white police officer, two months after Brown was fatally shot in nearby Ferguson.