Khalil Ferguson voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and supports Dr. Flojaune Cofer, a progressive, in this year’s Sacramento mayoral race. But he plans to vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, reflecting a growing trend of increased support for Trump among Black voters compared to previous elections.

“That was a very reluctant vote for Biden,” Ferguson, 28, told The OBSERVER.

In 2020, 92% of Black voters supported Biden, while just 8% voted for Trump. Today, a recent NAACP survey shows 63% of Black voters favor Biden’s running mate and this year’s Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, but 13% back Trump, with 1 in 4 Black men under 50 supporting him.

Ferguson’s disenchantment with Harris stems from his feeling that she was “shoved down my throat” after Biden ended his candidacy in July. “Democrats often blame Republicans for eroding democracy,” he says. “Democrats will constantly point the finger at the Republican party as the ones who are destroying democracy when they in fact do a lot of those things internally and suspend their own rules for their agenda.”

But what really steered his vote to Trump was having started his own businesses and studying corporate law at McGeorge School of Law. He added that recently becoming a father changed his perspective on politics.

“We’re taxed way more than we should be,” Ferguson says.

Ferguson says he wasn’t bothered by comments Trump has made questioning whether Harris is Black. Having followed Harris’ political career, Ferguson says she hasn’t been a Black politician, although she has benefited from identity politics.

“That [Blackness] has not been the focus of her identity until she went to the national stage,” Ferguson says.

When Harris was elected California attorney general in 2010, it was widely reported that she was the first Black woman to hold that office.

Ebie Lynch, an ambassador for California’s Frederick Douglass Foundation, echoes Ferguson, setting aside Trump’s rhetoric to focus on policy. “Both sides have rhetoric, but sometimes you have to ignore the noise and focus on substance,” she says. Initially wary of Trump, she didn’t support him in 2016 but now finds his economic policies compelling.

Lynch didn’t vote for Trump in 2020 for personal reasons but agreed with his economic plan for the country. Though she is keeping an open mind, she plans to vote for him Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Besides Trump’s economic plans, Lynch supports the former president because she believes he puts the United States first. She compared it to the instructions from flight attendants for adults in the event of an emergency to put on their oxygen masks before helping a child.

“You have to be able to take care of yourself before you can help someone else,” Lynch says. “Our country needs to focus on us first.”

Lynch, who is retired military, says her life was better financially during Trump’s administration: “It’s very hard to get along right now.”

Lynch also agrees with the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs case that limited access to abortion because it gave the power back to each state to make laws surrounding abortion and maternity care.

She says states that have a different view on abortion than California should be able to create laws that reflect how people in other states feel about abortion.

In the two-plus years since the Dobbs ruling, 14 states have banned abortion, 10 of them making no exception for rape or incest.

Brenda Bennett, a lifelong Republican, is a member of the Sacramento County Republicans and works at a party office with another Black Republican, Kimberly Wood. Both have been accepting early ballots and handing out political yard signs in the run-up to the election.

Bennett, a Catholic, always has been against abortion.

“I think it’s horrific how they want to kill babies,” she says. “To use abortion as a way to not want a baby when there are so many ways to prevent pregnancy … is horrendous.”

Bennett feels that life begins at conception. She also thinks a woman should keep the child in cases of rape or incest because there are other options, such as giving up the child for adoption.

Wood thinks Trump helped increase wages and create jobs, and that he improved the military and kept the price of gas down. She also believes other countries respected America more when he was president.

“We were prospering and beginning to be the country that we were destined to be,” Wood says. She also says the cost of living was much better during Trump’s presidency compared to now.

Wood, who has voted Republican the last several elections, says she does not govern her life as a Black woman. Wood believes that by focusing on race, Democrats contribute to political division.

“This color of your skin and identifying yourself according to that is just killing our nation and the Democratic party is continuing to push divisiveness with racism,” Wood says.

As for the 2024 election, Bennett believes Trump will win, arguing that only “Democratic interference” could prevent it. “I know he’s not going to lose, I believe they [Democrats] will try to steal the election again,” she says. “Trump loves the American people, regardless of what the media says.”