Biden credits Black voters for his win 4 years ago. His campaign is working to win their support again.

At the moment many Black voters aren't feeling enthusiastic about President Joe Biden, which might explain why on the 2024 presidential campaign trail he credits them with his White House win four years ago.

"Because Black Americans voted, Kamala and I are President and Vice President of the United States — because of you," Biden said at a rally at Girard College in Philadelphia last month.

"That’s not hyperbole. Because you voted, Donald Trump is a defeated former president."

To win this year, the Biden campaign has revved up its spending on messaging to Black voters and begun talking up parts of its record that it hopes will appeal to African Americans.

Biden can't win without strong support from Black voters, experts say.

But a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll of Black voters in the swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania show that only about 55% would choose Biden for their first choice right now. About half say they're "very motivated" in that decision, according to the telephone poll of 1,000 registered voters conducted between June 9 and June 13.

Still, there's an opportunity for Biden to regain many of these voters, said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk's Political Research Center. Even among those who didn't chose Biden as their first choice, nearly half said they'd pick him as their second choice.

"Some of those voters can be captured back by Biden, including the people who said they weren't voting for Biden ‒ a chunk of them said I still could come back to him," Paleologos said. "That's the silver lining for Biden."

Biden bested Trump 92 to 8 among Black voters in 2020, according to exit polls. Most polls, including the new USA TODAY/Suffolk survey, finds Biden's support among Black voters is far weaker at the moment, although Trump remains deeply unpopular.

Results: Exclusive poll: Black voters aren't thrilled with Biden but dislike Trump more

Biden campaign Black Media Director Jasmine Harris emphasized how the president has delivered for African Americans, citing a historically low Black unemployment rate, Biden’s efforts to lower healthcare costs, a bipartisan gun safety law, appointing the most diverse Cabinet in history and "putting Black wealth at the forefront of his administration."

The White House has held listening sessions in Black communities in almost a dozen states over the last several months.

And as of late, the Biden campaign has spotlighted ways in which it says former President Donald Trump failed African Americans when he was in office from 2016 to 2020 and argued he would likely fail Black constituents again.

Still, nationally, the Biden campaign has struggled to reclaim the level of Black voter support it enjoyed in 2020, polls and experts suggest, with many registered voters saying they are likely to back third-party candidates or simply sit out this fall's election.

A New York Times-Siena poll in May had Biden ahead 63% to Trump’s 23% among Black voters in a head-to-head contest. When third-party candidates — such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West — were factored in, Biden’s support from Black voters shrunk to 49% and Trump's to 14%.

"At this moment, there seems to be less enthusiasm, there seems to be less clarity on what exactly President Biden has done to advance the condition and the lives of Black Americans," said Cathy J. Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. "I think the couch may be the most important threat to Biden."

Biden allies dismiss jitters

The Biden team and many allies are downplaying data points showing an 'enthusiasm gap' for the president among Black voters — even as it pours money into opening new offices, hiring additional staff and running advertisements aimed explicitly at those constituents.

The campaign believes African Americans would be more supportive if they could be made aware of what the Biden administration views as major accomplishments on their behalf.

To that end, high-level officials in the administration and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are reaching out to Black voters, Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-Calif., told USA Today.

"The substance of the administration has been incredible and telling that story has got to be the work of the folks who are actually going to be out and doing the work."

Biden himself has been actively addressing Black voters, including in Atlanta where he recently gave the commencement address at Morehouse, a historically Black college for men. He also visited Black-owned businesses during a tour last month that took him to Georgia and Michigan and spoke at an NAACP dinner in Detroit the same weekend.

Vice President Kamala Harris, has also been dispatched to shore up Black voters, and at the end of April launched an economic tour centered on Biden administration programs that are meant to help the Black community. She’s made subsequent stops in Detroit, Milwaukee and a Black-owned small business in Ypsilanti, Michigan, dedicated to African American literature. Last week, she stumped in Charlotte, North Carolina, and spoke in Atlanta at the 100 Black Men of America conference, which promotes mentorship and community.

Trey Baker, the Biden campaign's Black outreach director, said in a lengthy campaign memo that these visits illustrate commitment to minority voters. The campaign made a seven-figure investment in Black media in the month of May alone, has been reaching out to Black voters at major festivals and Biden has done at least 11 Black radio interviews this year.

"From the very beginning the president and vice president have been clear that this campaign will not take a single voter for granted. We are not, and will not, parachute into these communities at the last minute, expecting their vote," Baker said.

Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the powerful South Carolina congressman, is credited with boosting momentum for Biden's 2020 campaign. Last month Clyburn, now a co-chair of Biden’s national re-election effort, trekked through Pennsylvania union halls and churches carrying the campaign's message. He plans to do the same in Georgia, Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina in the coming months.

Clyburn said he doesn't know if the messages will resonate with Black voters. But “you have faith in the process and you put forth your best effort,’’ he said.

There are different challenges in the 2024 cycle than in 2020, including more sophisticated misinformation campaigns, he said.

"The subtleties are gone and people are just in your face," Clyburn said.

The president also needs to remind Black voters what would happen if he loses. "Donald Trump represents something in this country that we thought we'd gotten beyond,” Clyburn said.

Trump's pursuit of Black voters

For his part, Trump recently opened a field office in Philadelphia and spoke in Detroit on Saturday, two moves aimed at reaching Black voters.

MAGA Inc., the main super PAC backing Trump, has blitzed the radio waves in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan with spots aimed at Black voters on immigration and transgender rights.

In one attack ad, a narrator says the presumptive Republican nominee will "protect our daughters' sports teams." It goes on to say Trump will wage "war on the cartels and stop the flood of drugs and crime into our communities."

The USA TODAY/Suffolk poll showed that just over half of Black voters in both Michigan and Pennsylvania oppose or strongly oppose the idea of providing transgender minors with gender-affirming medical care, compared to about 40% who support it.

Trump campaign surrogates believe these and other wedge issues can shave off a certain percentage of Black voters in the former president’s favor this fall.

“I said it last time, I’ll say it again — not only will we win, we will win big,” Sen. Tim Scott, a former presidential rival now on Trump’s vice presidential shortlist, said this month on “America’s Starting Five” a video series featuring him and four other Black Republican lawmakers.

“Not with 10% or 12% of the African-American vote, I believe we can get half of African American men and 25% of African-American women,” Scott added. “They just need to know we are as sincere about their kid’s future as we’ve ever been.”

Cohen, the University of Chicago professor, said research she’s conducted through GenForward, a youth project at the college doesn't show a herd moving towards the former president, but rather a Black electorate that is still weighing their choices.

“It's important to see that all options are on the table in terms of an alternative to Biden: third-party candidates, staying at home and in particular for young Black men voting for Trump,” she said.

In the new USA TODAY/Suffolk poll, about 15% of Black voters in both Pennsylvania and Michigan would opt for a third-party candidate if the election were held right now and 14% remain undecided.

But even if Trump only makes a small dent in Biden's support among Black voters, he could have a big impact, Paleologos said. Because Biden claimed such a high percentage of Black voters in the last election, every one he loses to Trump this time means he has to win over 13 more to break even.

That’s whatsome Trump allies are making a bet on, and they have gone as far as to say the former president's 34 felony convictions in a New York hush-money case makes him more relatable to Black voters ‒ an assertion that infuriates civil rights leaders and others as trading in stereotypes.

Harrison Floyd, a Black conservative political activist who led the outreach effort to Black voters in Trump's 2020 campaign, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter that prosecutors executed a "political lynching" against Trump.

The verdict, he said, has "exposed the rigged justice system Blacks have endured for decades.

The USA TODAY-Suffolk poll shows Black voters greatly distrust the justice system: 71% of Black voters in Michigan and 77% of those in Pennsylvania think the system is unfair, with roughly half in both states saying they know someone personally who has been wrongly convicted.

Still, those polled said Trump's verdict did not make them more likely to support him. About 80% of Black voters in both states said his criminal indictments did not enable them to see him a "fellow victim of discrimination and persecution in the justice system."

And 55% of Black voters in Michigan and 64% of those in Pennsylvania think it's offensive Trump would expect them to be more supportive of him now that he's a convicted felon.

So there's room for both candidates to make inroads among Black voters, Paleologos and Cohen said.

“I think we have to recognize young Black voters as sophisticated. They are watching and hearing what (Biden) says and trying to analyze what has been his effort on the issues that matter to them," Cohen said.

Drawing 2024 policy contrasts going forward

Biden's congressional allies said the president and his team must continue to hammer away at their accomplishments in office, and emphasize the policy and character contrasts with Trump.

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, said he reminds people in his Sunday sermons that the Biden administration has boosted funding to historically Black colleges and universities, reduced student loan debts and created sustainable jobs.

"We’ve got to keep preaching that gospel. We’ve got to turn our people out," he said.

“I know the pollsters will do what pollsters do. The pundits will be busy engaged in punditry every single day, but the poll that matters is the one on Election Day," said Warnock, who is sometimes touted as a future presidential contender.

Black communities "are ready to be listened to," Butler, the California senator, said. They will notice the Biden campaign is making frequent and substantive visits to historically Black colleges and universities, along with meeting with influential leaders and civic groups.

"Black voters know that this is an administration that while imperfect is actually intent on doing the work rather than just being a sound bite or a T-shirt or a pair of sneakers as the tool to convince them to vote," she said, referring to the controversy over a Fox contributor's comments that Trump's new sneakers might help Black voters connect to him.

But how much Biden's message is energizing would-be voters remains unclear.

Prince Hamn, a 37-year old Maryland Democrat, said he's disappointed with his choices for president.

Biden should be praised for reducing school loan debt for some, but he hasn't done enough to reduce prices or kept many other promises, said Hamn, who recently canvassed suburban Maryland neighborhoods for the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, a nonpartisan group.

"I don’t put much faith in politics," Hamn said. "I put my faith in the man upstairs."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden has revved up efforts to get Black voters to support him again.