By Kyle Olson
For all the talk about Donald Trump allegedly driving minorities away from the Republican Party, could he actually bring people in?
A SurveyUSA poll released Friday shows in a hypothetical matchup with Hillary Clinton, Trump is ahead 45% to 40%.
But digging into the racial breakdown of the respondents is revealing. For example, the poll finds 25% of black respondents say they would vote for Trump over Clinton.
How impressive is that? Let’s look at the last several presidential results for Republicans.
When President Obama was running for re-election, despite a sputtering economy that was impacting blacks the worst, Mitt Romney was able to muster only 6% of the black vote, according to the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut.
At the time Obama was facing off against John McCain in 2008, the Republican received a measly 4%, according stats from to the Roper Center.
When George W. Bush was running for re-election in 2004, he only did a little better than McCain. The organization reports Bush received 11% of the black vote, while in 2000, he received 9%.
According to the SurveyUSA poll, Trump would more than double the best result for a Republican in modern American history.
Looking at the last 10 presidential election cycles, the highest black vote share for a Republican was 12% for Bob Dole in 1996.
Interestingly, Trump is also outpacing Romney’s support among Hispanics.
The SurveyUSA poll finds 31% of Hispanics would vote for Trump. In the 2012 general election, Romney received only 27%, according to the Roper Center.
