Politics

Many younger Black men are apathetic about Trump’s policies, survey finds

Published

4 months ago

February 26, 2026

Democrats have more work to do if they want to win over younger Black men ahead of the midterms, new research reveals.

Black men 50 years old and below were more likely to show apathy toward President Donald Trump’s policies and less likely to say they were personally hurt by them, compared with other age and gender groups within the critical voting bloc, according to a survey released Thursday by several Democratic-aligned organizations.

Forty-two percent of Black men under 50 said Trump’s policies have not made much of a difference. Just 24 percent of Black men over 50 said the same, as did 22 percent Black women over 50 and 30 percent of Black women under 50.

Across the board, 63 percent of Black voters said Democrats in Congress are responsible for fighting against government actions that harm their communities, but only 36 percent said they believed Congressional Democrats were very actively fighting.

Democrats have seen recent electoral success slamming Trump on the economy as voters increasingly blame his administration for rising costs. But the party is still working to piece back together a strong multiracial coalition after the president fractured it in 2024, when he won roughly a quarter of Black men and nearly half of all Latino men.

“This has been one of my loudest warnings to the left after the 2025 elections,” said Terrance Woodbury, the Founding Partner of the liberal-leaning polling firm HIT Strategies, which conducted the research project. “[Do] not wave a ‘mission accomplished’ flag, do not to assume that we have reassembled our coalition of young people and people of color and men of color — who I believe have become the new swing voters.”

Trump’s approval rating overall has fallen, and a recent YouGov poll showed it at just 8 percent among Black voters. Since returning to office, the president has also moved to eradicate Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs while ratcheting up criminal penalties and tougher immigration enforcement.

But Harrison Fields, a GOP strategist and former White House official who served in Trump’s second term, is optimistic.

“The Democrats have not done enough to convince Black males in particular, to come back home because they haven’t been focused on policy,” he said. “If your only policy is being against Trump, you then again are proving Black voters, especially Black male voters, correct in that [the Democratic Party’s] focus is not about them.”

Thursday’s survey relied on several rounds of data collection, including three focus groups in August, a national survey of 1,000 Black registered voters with a margin of error of 3.1 percent in October, and a rapid messaging testing trial of 1,808 Black registered voters conducted between Jan. 30 and Feb. 5.

Politics

Canada’s biggest fan may be its biggest problem

Published

7 minutes ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

OTTAWA — Mark Carney may be Canada’s loudest booster at the World Cup, but some of his countrymen fear he may be hurting more than helping — because he always does when it comes to sports.

In March 2025, the new prime minister joined the Edmonton Oilers for a pre-game skate. That night the Oilers fell to the Winnipeg Jets, followed by a wave of injuries on the team. Former Oiler and “Spittin’ Chiclets” podcast host Ryan Whitney took to X: “The Carney Curse is real for Edmonton. What the hell just happened. Guy is on the ice with the Oil this morning and now everyone is injured.”

Now some Canadians are worried that their prime minister has brought the “Carney Curse” to the World Cup, blaming him for Canada’s defeat against Switzerland on Wednesday. His country’s only only goal coincided with a moment that Carney left his box seat at Vancouver’s BC Place.

For a brief, glorious moment last week, the Ottawa fishbowl wondered if the curse had been broken. Carney skipped Canada’s World Cup opener against Bosnia-Herzegovina. But then, after days of anxious whispers over whether he’d jinx the squad, the prime minister witnessed Canada thrash Qatar. If Canada had beaten or tied the Swiss, the team could’ve played as many as two elimination games in Vancouver. With the loss, they fell to runner-up — and a knockout-round game in Los Angeles against South Africa on Sunday.

Canada’s men’s soccer team joins an ever-growing list of inadvertent “victims” of prime-ministerial fanhood, including: the Toronto Blue Jays, who lost the World Series after Carney visited the team; the Canadian women’s rugby team, for whom he traveled to the United Kingdom to cheer on at the World Cup last summer; and the Montreal Canadiens, whom he dubbed “Canada’s team” during the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Politics

Orange gush: KC mayor parties with the Dutch

Published

52 minutes ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas danced with Netherlands fans to their famous song “Links Rechts” ahead of the Orange Walk in Kansas City’s Power & Light District on Thursday. The Dutch supporters — along with the Scots and the Norwegians — have been some of the most exuberant in backing their team around the U.S. One local told the Kansas City Star that the experience topped a Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade.

Politics

How much longer can Donald Trump go missing from the World Cup?

Published

1 hour ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Some of soccer’s biggest names have to come to play at the World Cup: Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland, Vinícius Júnior and now even Cristiano Ronaldo have left their mark on the score sheet.

But one key player who loomed over just about every step of pre-tournament preparations has been notably invisible: Donald Trump.

Pre-tournament fears that the American president would trample on the soccer jamboree have, so far, proved largely unfounded after the first two weeks of competition. Trump has yet to attend a match, and even as the U.S. team mounts its best World Cup performance in decades he has done little to claim the success as his own.

Aside from persistent complications surrounding the Iran squad’s entry and exit to the U.S. for games, and the ban on a Somali referee from entering the country before the tournament started, political incidents involving the Trump administration and soccer — or leaders of other World Cup countries, including the neighboring co-hosts with whom he often spars — have been few and far between.

No ICE arrests around matches. No heavy-handed policing like soccer fans sometimes suffer in Western Europe. No beef between Trump and Democratic leaders of cities and states where some of the tournament’s highest-profile matches have been played.

As one European-based senior sports executive told Blue Light News last year about the administration and the World Cup, “Why would they want to f—k it up?”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended the USMNT’s opener against Paraguay in Los Angeles, while Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — along with other senior Cabinet officials — was at the American match vs. Australia in Seattle. Though Trump himself hasn’t been to a game yet, he did send the U.S. squad a message of support at the start of the tournament.

In an interview last week with Blue Light News, Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey said her administration had worked with the U.S. government “around transportation funding, security funding. That’s the way it should be. There should be that kind of work and coordination.”

Trump allies are on the same page as the tournament progresses serenely through the group stage, beyond continued griping about high ticket prices and transport to and from some stadiums.

“It’s been really good to see the coordination, certainly from a law enforcement perspective,” said Andrew Giuliani, head of the White House’s World Cup task force, as he praised cooperation with police and security services in blue states like New York, New Jersey and California, where the administration doesn’t “agree eye to eye with the mayors and the governors.”

“It’s fun to see moments where the country can come together as well, and I think this is one of those great moments over our 250th birthday where that can happen,” he added.

This week, FIFA chief Gianni Infantino confirmed what many have expected: Trump plans to attend the final on July 19 and help present the winner’s trophy. Can a president who loves the spotlight stay away til then?