More than one in four young Black men in six battleground states say they are uncertain about or unlikely to vote in the 2026 midterm elections, even as 92% of them say voting is important, according to a new survey released in May.
The poll was commissioned by Black Men Vote, a nonprofit focused on mobilizing Black male voters, and conducted by HIT Strategies, a Washington-based research firm. It surveyed more than 1,600 registered Black men ages 18 to 45 in Georgia, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, using text-to-web surveys and online panels, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.49 percentage points. The fielding dates for the survey were not published in the coverage reviewed for this story.
The numbers describe an electorate that is engaged but not yet locked in. Seventy-four percent of respondents said they are “almost certain” or “probably” going to vote in 2026, while 19% described their likelihood of voting as essentially a toss-up — leaving 26% either uncertain or unlikely to participate. The men surveyed are not tuned out: about 44% actively seek news about current events and politics, and only 6% say they avoid the news altogether.
“This research shows that young Black men remain broadly left-of-center, but they do not fit neatly into the political boxes and campaign assumptions that too often define them,” said Michael Bland, executive director of Black Men Vote.
Bland framed the turnout gap as a warning to both parties. “They value voting, but one in four are not yet committed to participating in 2026,” he said. “That should be a wake-up call: Black men are not a problem to be solved or a bloc to be chased in the final weeks of an election. They are a decisive electorate that has to be respected, understood and engaged year-round”.
That “year-round engagement” takeaway is the sponsor’s interpretation of the data, not a poll finding itself. Black Men Vote is formally nonpartisan, though its co-founder, Frank White, has been a major donor to Democratic candidates, its executive director previously worked for a presidential campaign, and a separately registered Black Men Vote PAC has independent expenditures on file with federal regulators.
One question the poll raises cannot currently be answered with public data: what campaigns actually spend to reach young Black men. Political ad spending hit roughly $11 billion in the 2024 cycle, a 23% increase over the 2022 midterms, and the Brennan Center for Justice tracks online political ad spending by platform and strategy. But no publicly available dataset breaks out spending directed at young Black men as a demographic. The men in this survey say the parties do not see them; the spending records, as they exist, cannot show otherwise — or at all.
One note of precision: the survey covers registered Black men ages 18 to 45 in six states. Its findings should not be read as describing all Black men, or Black men nationally.
Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.
Based on reporting by Bakersfield News Observer.
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