Gun violence, white supremacy and the economy: What Black voters want Democrats to fix

It's no wonder President Joe Biden was at Howard University last week. He has work to do to convince Black voters he deserves a second term.

Biden and congressional Democrats are focused on swinging public opinion to their side as they try to strike a debt ceiling deal with Republicans, just as Biden departed Wednesday for a G-7 summit in Japan.

But as he deals with record-low approval ratings and stubbornly high inflation, Black voters — a key bloc loyal to Democrats — remain restless after fewer among them voted in November.

Black voters posted a 51.7 percent participation rate in the 2018 election, but only 42 percent cast a ballot in 2022, according to data released earlier this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. A key part of the so-called Obama coalition, analysts and strategists say Biden cannot win a second term unless he can convince more Black voters to head to their local polling station in a year-and-a-half.