The Swing-State Power of Black Voters Is Real

Ever since Black Americans gained the right to vote, people afraid of their political potential have sought to disenfranchise them. But after the 2020 presidential election, at least one method isn’t likely to work anymore: convincing them that their votes don’t matter.

The idea behind voter discouragement, as the tactic is known, is to render people so uninspired by the process or by the candidates that they decide voting isn’t worth the trouble. The advent of social networks and targeted advertising has taken it to a new level: Campaigns can focus precisely on the people they want to discourage, tailoring messages and delivering them in ways that are hard for outsiders to detect.