While relatively few believe President Trump's declarations that he's done more for African Americans than any other president with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, a new survey shows broad agreement that the 16th president was the most impactful.
Tatishe Nteta is a political science professor and director of the UMass Amherst Poll, which surveyed 1,500 likely voters last week. Asked to rank the presidents by who was most impactful for the Black community, Nteta said Lincoln received the most first-place picks, Lyndon Johnson the most second-place picks, and Dwight Eisenhower the most third-place picks. (PDF)
Tatishe Nteta: Abraham Lincoln ended slavery, for all intents and purposes, and fought a war to ensure the freedom of African Americans. Then with LBJ — a Texas member of Congress and vice president who ascended to the presidency after the assassination of [John F. Kennedy] — committed himself to civil rights. So a Southerner who was out front with the Civil Rights Act, out front with the Voting Rights Act, out front with the Fair Housing Act, made the case for affirmative action in his commencement speech at Howard University. And so, that LBJ is the second-ranked president is, again, no surprise.
We were somewhat surprised that Eisenhower ranked third. I mean, I think this is a reflection of history rewarding the bold. We know that, historically, Eisenhower was not necessarily super supportive of civil rights and racial egalitarianism. But, at the same time, he was the president who sent in federal troops to protect the Little Rock Nine. And, I think, this is a reflection of Americans' understandings of their history and the important role that presidents have played symbolically and actually in expanding the rights and protecting the rights of African Americans.
Kari Njiiri, NEPM: Did the results vary among the demographic and political groups?
Yeah, without a doubt. And so, we looked at a number of different categories. Of course, we have all our sample of voters, the 1500 voters. But we were interested to see whether or not this argument that President Trump has done more for the African American community than any other president except for Lincoln, whether or not that resonated with supporters of President Trump.
So we looked at Republican likely voters. We looked at voters who indicated that they will support President Trump. And among these voters, we do see pretty clear evidence that they have internalized this belief. So he receives the most second-place votes amongst Republican likely voters and amongst Trump voters. This is clear evidence that this particular statement has resonated, has internalized with this group of folks.
Interestingly, African Americans have not really embraced this argument that President Trump has done the most for their community since Lincoln. Of course, African Americans, like every other demographic group and political group, identify Abraham Lincoln as the president that's done the most for the community. The most second place votes went to Barack Obama and the most third place votes went to Barack Obama. And, again, that's not necessarily surprising. Barack Obama, the first African American president, who — of course — passed a number of policies that have benefited the African American community, most notably Obamacare. And, again, the symbolic importance of Barack Obama is seen in our results.
