By Lindsay Martin
Staff Writer

The 2020 General Election had the largest turnout of African Americans voting for a Conservative candidate than ever before. 

Former President Donald Trump, a Republican, gained 6 percent of the black male vote, the biggest group increase compared to 2016.

While the majority of black voters mark ballots for Democratic candidates, the black community does not have uniform views. According to a Pew Research Study, 25 percent of black Democrats identify as conservative, and 43 percent as moderate. 

While there are black people with conservative views, they still tend to not identify as Republican. The numbers have been growing slightly with the prominence of organizations such as Blexit, created by right-wing personality Candace Owens.

Owen Campbell, an African American junior at the University of Alabama, left the Democratic party last year. 

“They no longer seemed to represent enough of my values such as religious freedom, the sanctity of life, constitutionalism, patriotism, isolationism, individualism, and free-market economics,” Campbell said.

Campbell believes that the Republican party has a better chance of delivering promises to the black community than does the Democratic party.

“Many black Republicans feel used by the Democratic party for power,” Campbell said. “They don’t believe blue leadership has been effective enough and want to see change take place in their communities.”

Hunter Weathers, president of the University of Alabama College Republicans, shares the same sentiment.

“I think that African Americans are starting to want to see a change in their own communities,” Weathers said. “This is something that the Democratic party has been telling African Americans but not delivering. Black conservatives just lay out the issues going on in these communities and are trying to find ways to fix them.”

Black conservative support is predicted to rise in 2024. However, UA political science major Anna Godwin doesn’t believe that black Republicans will be a force in politics anytime soon.

“There are just not enough black people who vote conservative for them to be a reliable stronghold,” Godwin said. “ I can see maybe by 2050, but 2024 won’t have much significant growth”.