The Kanye Effect? Poll Shows Black Male Approval of Trump Doubled In One Week

Brittany M. Hughes | May 3, 2018
DONATE
Font Size

Call it the Kanye Effect, but it looks like “Yeezy” might have just helped swing black approval in President Donald Trump’s favor.

(Now excuse me while I go launch myself off a cliff for actually using “Yeezy” in a blog.)

According to a new Reuters poll, Trump’s approval rating among black males doubled from 11 percent to 22 percent in just one week – immediately after rapper Kanye West tweeted support for the president and launched a social media firestorm that rivaled that of his wife’s half-naked Instagram posts.

Here’s Kanye’s now infamous tweet, posted on April 25.

Tweet

From the Epoch Times:

Since Kanye’s tweets, Trump’s approval rating among black people started to increase, from 11 percent on April 25 to 21 percent on April 30, the poll shows.

Other polls show increases too.

Morning Consult shows a rise from 11 to 18 percent between April 19-23 and April 26-May 1 polls.

Gallup shows an increase from 9 to 13 percent between Feb. 26-April 1 and April 2-April 29 polls, though these results don’t focus on the specific period before and after Kanye’s tweets.

The Economist/YouGov poll shows a more modest increase, from 10 to 12 percent, between April 22-24 and April 29-May 1 polls.


Now, to be fair, Reuters' poll was of only 262 black men – hardly an overall snapshot of the entire population. And Trump’s approval among black males had fluctuated pretty heavily well before Kanye’s tweet lit the internet on fire, starting at below 7 percent on April 1 and swinging as high as 17 percent by April 7 before falling again.

Even so, it’s amazing at the effect one celebrity tweet seems to have on voters’ perception of a politician.

Well, except for Hillary. That didn’t work out so well.

donate