PHILADELPHIA — Standing outside of a West Philadelphia Aldi with bags of groceries, Aaron Bryant said he didn’t vote. But if he had, he probably would have voted for President-elect Donald Trump. The reason?
“I believe he was the best person for the job,” said Bryant, a West Philadelphia resident. “(A)nd the economy was much better when he was in office, as well.”
On Election Day, Trump’s most loyal demographic base in Philadelphia remained in the city’s majority-white neighborhoods and wards, where he won nearly 30% of the vote. But that doesn’t discount the citywide shift of the city’s neighborhoods of color toward the right, movement that’s been happening since 2016.
That rightward trend wasn’t driven solely by increased Republican support among voters of color, but it also reflected low voter turnout in majority-Black precincts like West Philadelphia’s Mill Creek neighborhood, where the Aldi grocery store is. Bryant has never voted, though as a Black man he’s part of one of the Democrats’ most loyal bases, one the party failed to turn out.
According to an Inquirer analysis of election results, Democrats performed worse in 649 of the 688 majority-Black precincts in Philadelphia while Trump grew his share of votes in 635 majority-Black precincts as compared with 2020.
Black neighborhoods also had some of the lowest turnout in the city. Of the about 22,600 people who sat out the election, about 80% lived in Black-majority precincts.
Citywide, Trump enjoyed increased support across racial lines in less affluent neighborhoods with fewer college graduates. And marginal growth in support for Trump in some majority-Black precincts, coupled with lower-than-expected turnout, helped him perform better in Black precincts.
Neighborhoods throughout West Philadelphia and parts of North Philadelphia saw the largest drop in voter turnout, which mostly meant fewer votes for Democrats. In three of the top five mostly Black precincts where turnout fell, Trump increased his share of votes without actually garnering more votes himself.
In Mill Creek, 210 fewer ballots were cast. There, Trump’s vote share increased from 2.9% to 5%, up 67 votes from 2020.
Several residents shopping in the neighborhood suggested one reason they didn’t vote was distrust of the government; they felt like the fix was in. They also pointed to concerns about transgender rights and Harris’ racial identity — two social issues over which the Republican Party attacked Harris — which they said kept them from voting Democrat or engendered them to Trump.
“I don’t think the citizens determine who’s gonna be in office at all so I just don’t waste my time,” said Cequora Jones, 34.
Jones has never voted, and said neither candidate persuaded her to go to the polls. But: “If I would have voted,” she said, “I probably would have voted for Trump.” Jones cited social issues, like disapproval of unisex bathrooms, as a “good point” for Trump.
Evervine Brown, 31, hasn’t voted since 2012 when she helped elect former President Barack Obama. She said she sat out this election despite loved ones urging her to vote for Harris.
“I felt like I didn’t want to vote for her because I really don’t know her like that,” Brown said. She questioned Harris’ race, a point that was introduced by Trump and parroted by conservatives to discredit Harris among Black voters. Harris’ father is Jamaican and her mother was Indian.
Neither Jones nor Brown was surprised Trump won. Nor was Stephen Waters, who voted for the vice president.
“She kind of got thrown into the race by default when Biden got sick,” said Waters, 30, of Harris’ candidacy, “and Trump’s been around for quite a long time. So even if he’s not very popular with people, … a lot of common people didn’t know who Kamala was.”
Until official voter rolls are released, typically several weeks after an election, it’s difficult to parse out how voting behaviors differed by gender on the precinct-level. In Pennsylvania however, 26% of Black men, more than a quarter, voted for Trump according to exit polling that surveys voters as they’re leaving the polls. Seventy-two percent voted for Harris. In contrast, only 3% of Black women in Pennsylvania voted for the Republican.
Trump’s support among Black men in Pennsylvania was higher than the national average, where 21% of Black men voted for the Republican. It’s also a staggering leap in support for the president-elect compared with 2020, when exit polling found Trump garnered support from just 10% of Black men in Pennsylvania.
Black men who voted for Trump locally offered a number of reasons they believe he grew his vote share in the city, from perceptions of an ineffective Democratic Party to inflation to immigration.
Carnel Harley, 51, the GOP leader of the 13th Ward, said Trump’s signing of a bipartisan criminal justice reform law called the First Step Act, which shortens federal sentences and seeks to improve prison conditions, helped Black America. He added that Harris’ ties to President Joe Biden’s administration harmed her reputation.
“What has the past administration done for the Black community besides [Juneteenth],” Harley asked.
John McAuley, 36, is a delivery truck driver and conservative podcaster. He said his top priorities when choosing a president were decreasing inflation and curbing immigration.
“I think Black men chose policy this time instead of race, and they stopped listening to mainstream media and started getting a lot of their information through X,” said McAuley, of Mount Airy.
Economic experts have said Trump’s two biggest proposals, enforcing widespread tariffs and mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, would be inflationary. When asked about the fact that experts said mass deportation would likely lead to inflation, McAuley said it’s also a matter of national security.
“If we’re trying to compare what it will cost to do a mass deportation, you can’t put a financial tag on national security,” he said.
Shawn Gamble Jr. said sociocultural issues could have influenced more Black men to cast a ballot for Trump or influenced Black voters to sit out the election in general. Gamble, who voted for Trump and is an officer with the Black Conservative Federation, said a family member who did not vote at all flagged a conservative ad bashing Harris’ support for transgender individuals.
“The fact that that was the first thing she told me when I talked to her, I was like, ‘Wow, that stuck,’” Gamble, 26, said. “So it could’ve been the whole social and culture war.”
Gamble also said anxieties about the economy and immigration helped Trump.
Gamble, who is from Logan and has lived in Reading since 2016, said Trump’s outreach to voters of color, and Black voters specifically, is unique.
“When I first started out, it was not this diverse,” Gamble said of the Republican Party. “And to see how it has grown, it’s beautiful.”
This election showed people don’t necessarily vote based on policy, said Timothy Welbeck, the director at Temple University’s Center for Anti-Racism.
“Much of this election was not decided by policy and potential solutions because if you listen closely to President-elect Trump’s rallies and statements, he offered very little policy proposals,” Welbeck said.
“In many ways, the electorate demonstrated that what they say they want from their elected officials is not necessarily the same thing that they will select when they step into the voting booth,” Welbeck added later.
D’Andra Orey, who studies Black political attitudes and is a professor of political science at Jackson State University, said Black people distrust the political establishment, and Trump’s positioning of himself as a political outsider helped the Republican candidate.
Orey studies intraracial attitudes — or Black attitudes about Black people — and said internalized racism worked together with sexism to push Black men away from Harris.
“From the mammy, to the Jezebel, to the Sapphire,” he said, “all the different stereotypes that are associated with Black women, all of these impact people’s attitudes toward Black women.”
Orey and Welbeck repeatedly noted that Black men still overwhelmingly supported Harris.
“I think most postelection analysis has shied away from the fact that President-elect Trump’s rhetoric, messaging, and propaganda appealed to about half of the white population in this nation,” said Welbeck. “Ultimately it distills down to that.”
