Reporter Flusters NAACP President With Inconvenient Facts About Ron DeSantis and Black Voters

As RedState reported earlier, NAACP president Derrick Johnson went on CNN Monday morning to promote his organization’s new “travel advisory” for Florida, which specifically took aim at Gov. Ron DeSantis, proclaiming that he was “openly hostile” to the black community because he allegedly doesn’t want black children to learn black history.

Though Johnson likely expected CNN to be friendly territory, he was in for a surprise when “This Morning” anchor Sara Sidner noted that according to the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Florida in recent years had “moved into the number one spot in the United States for black-owned businesses and number two for Hispanic” businesses, with Sidner herself explaining that the statement, translated, suggested that “Hispanics are doing quite well” there.

As we also reported in our write-up, that did not sit well with Johnson, who denied reality for a couple of minutes before Sidner moved on to her next question – which just so happened to irritate Johnson even more because it specifically related to the black and Hispanic vote in Florida.

In a follow-up point, Sidner brought up CNN’s exit polling numbers from the 2022 gubernatorial race in Florida, which showed that 13 percent of black voters backed DeSantis and that 58 percent of the Hispanic vote went to DeSantis, both of which are pretty impressive numbers for Republicans when it comes to “voters of color.”

Here’s how the segment went down. Make sure to check out how flustered Johnson got over Sidner sharing the inconvenient facts about DeSantis and black and Hispanic voters:

Sidner: “I want to ask you about some numbers, and just your thoughts on this. In 2022, there was an exit poll in Florida that showed that 13 percent of exit polls, Black voters liked DeSantis. And then when it came to Latino voters in Florida, they voted for DeSantis as governor according to CNN’s exit poll. So the Black voters there voted for DeSantis, 13 percent of them. That’s not a small number. What do you say to those folks who voted for him?

Now, we have to also, with a caveat say, that this happened before some of these bans came into place like the banning of critical race theory in schools, of DEI in colleges, and the blocking of the AP course on African-American studies. But curious to your thoughts, 13 percent of the Black population is no small feat for a Republican candidate there in Florida.”

Johnson: “Well, I have never seen an accurate exit poll in 30 years, nor have you, nor have that network. And I’m surprised you would repeat an exit poll number. Exit polls are historically wrong and misleading. Therefore, whatever the number or percentage of individuals who voted for him, that’s prior to these bad policies. Now we are living in the reality of an individual whose governing. How someone campaigns and how they govern are two different realities. Now we are witnessing firsthand how he’s governing. And he’s governing to a small vocal minority of the community, not the majority interests of Florida, nor is he governing towards the future of Florida, which will not look like the small minority that he’s speaking to in this moment.”

Watch – starts at about the 5:10 mark of the below clip:

“We didn’t get here overnight, it was because of the election. So we have to prepare for the next election, so we can get rid of him once and for all.”@DerrickNAACP on NAACP advisory warning Black people against traveling to Florida: pic.twitter.com/gdjBpf8Rd4

— CNN This Morning (@CNNThisMorning) May 22, 2023

In fairness, exit polling can be hit or miss. But I have zero doubts that if 2022 Florida exit polling showed DeSantis getting like two percent of the black vote and two percent of the Hispanic vote, it would have been Johnson sharing those stats with CNN as further “evidence” that the only people who liked DeSantis were white conservative voters.

Further, it’s hilarious that Johnson claims that DeSantis is only catering to a small portion of the community, when last I checked, parents of school-aged children are not a “small minority” in any state, much less in Florida.

Florida, as DeSantis has said often, is “where woke goes to die.” It’s something he said throughout most of 2022 as he ramped up his campaign against wokeism in classrooms, and undoubtedly it is something that many voters took to heart when they voted for him over Charlie Crist.

As we saw in Virginia in 2021, Democrats awakened a sleeping giant – parents – who got sick and tired of their concerns being ignored. That carried through into DeSantis’ reelection campaign, as reforming the educational system in Florida became the centerpiece of his agenda.

Unfortunately for Johnson, the facts don’t care about his feelings. Also unfortunately for Johnson, the NAACP’s travel advisory is only going to embolden DeSantis to continue what he’s doing, while letting voters – not the hypocritical blowhards at the NAACP – be the ultimate judges.