Former Vice President Joe Biden is touting his support from the Black community once again. During an Iowa town hall hosted by Vice News, the Democratic candidate dismissed the idea that Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) was gaining ground among young Black voters, saying “All I know is, I am leading everybody, combined, with Black voters.”
According to the New York Times, Biden was responding to Vice reporter Antonia Hylton, who asked the frontrunner, “Why is Senator Sanders leading you with Black voters under the age of 35?” to which Biden responded flippantly that Sanders was actually not ahead of him.
The remark reportedly drew laughs from the audience, which prompted Biden to double-down on his comments.
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“Name me anybody who has remotely close to the support I have in the African-American community nationally,” Biden replied. He also added, “I’m not saying, ‘I am Black,’ but I want to tell you something. I have spent my whole career with the Black community.”
In an ESSENCE x BWR poll taken last year, the research found that Sen. Bernie Sanders was, in fact, leading the crowded field of hopefuls with support among Millennial and Gen Z women between the ages of 18-34.
ESSENCE’s Senior News & Politics Editor Kirsten West Savali wrote of the findings, “While older Black women polled continue to place their hopes in the centrism of former Vice-President Joe Biden (25%), younger Black women (18.9%) polled responded that they would vote for progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) if the 2020 presidential election were held today.”
And this isn’t the first time Biden has claimed total support from the African-American community. In addition to often promoting his ties to the country’s first Black president, he has given interviews extolling his support from Black voters, and on a November debate stage in Atlanta, Georgia, said that he came out of the Black community.
“If you notice, I have more people supporting me in the Black community that have announced for me,” Biden claimed, “because they know me, they know who I am.