Former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Sept. 29 criticized President Trump’s record on race, saying that he has “everything as a dog whistle to try to generate racist hatred, racist division.” Biden noted that 1 in 1,000 African Americans have died as a result of COVID-19 this year and said that the president has done “virtually nothing” for the African American community.

Trump pushed back on these claims, citing Biden’s support for the 1994 crime bill -- which likely contributed to a rise in incarceration rates among African Americans -- as evidence that he has not acted in the best interests of the Black community in the U.S. The president also claimed that he’s doing better among Black Americans in the polls than “any Republican has done in a long time.” A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found Biden leading Trump among Black voters by 90 percent to 5 percent. Black voters backing a Republican presidential candidate has averaged 10 percent since 1976, with John McCain receiving just 4 percent when he faced Barack Obama in 2008 and Gerald Ford receiving a high of 17 percent when he ran for re-election against Jimmy Carter in 1976. Trump received 8 percent of the Black vote in the 2016 presidential election.

Biden and Trump participated in the first 2020 presidential debate at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 29.

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