Fairly or unfairly, Joe Biden has been taking some heat over the fact that, while he was vice president, his son Hunter held a $50,000-a-month board position at Burisma, a Ukrainian gas firm. Democratic leaders are nervous about how his campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination has been responding. Meanwhile, he’s slipping in the polls. Biden has survived past stumbles in part because his poll numbers are buoyed by black voters. But can that last? …
Biden’s popularity with African American voters is undoubtedly due in part to his service as Barack Obama’s loyal vice president. During his presidential campaigns and his presidency, Obama’s close allies typically became more popular among both black voters and racially liberal whites who think racial inequality is due to structural forces like discrimination. CONT.
Michael Tesler (UC Irvine), Monkey Cage