(DETROIT) The threat of violence was in the air at the TCF Center in Detroit on Nov. 5, 2020, after former President Donald Trump claimed that poll workers in the city were duplicating ballots and that there was an unexplained delay in delivering them for counting.
Both claims were later debunked .
Emboldened by Trump’s rhetoric, dozens of mainly white Republican Trump supporters banged on doors and windows at the vote-tallying center, chanting, “ Stop the count !”
But Detroit’s poll workers, most of them Black, finished tallying the ballots. In the end, 95% of voters in Detroit , the largest city in Michigan and the one with the most African Americans – 78% of residents – cast their ballot for Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee.
We are political science and sociology professors at Wayne State University in Detroit, where we teach about the relationship between race, religion and politics. Our research has identified two groups of African American voters in Detroit – one that will clearly support Kamala Harris and another that is critical for her to win over if she wants to win Michigan.