Is apathy keeping Black voters from the polls? Experts disagree

Houston’s Black electorate is yet again in the spotlight ahead of the November elections, with experts weighing in on why eligible voters do not show up and the strategies that could turn out the vote.

As the 2026 midterms approach, two civic leaders in Houston believe that the familiar diagnosis of apathy as the cause of uneven Black voter turnout misses the underlying reasons they do not show up at the polls.

With a population of five million in 2025 and 20.5% of residents identifying as Black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Black electorate is crucial for the upcoming races. In the county, around 66% of registered voters cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election, compared with 43% in the 2022 general elections, according to the Office of County Administration.

But the story changes when it comes to Black voters. According to Hector De Leon, senior advisor for governmental affairs of public engagement and elections, voters in districts represented by Black elected officials were more likely to cast their ballots in the May 2026 primaries.

Rice University Associate Professor Joseph Ewoodzie Jr., who studies ‘Blackness’ through the lenses of Southern food and music, said it would be reductive to attribute the lack of turnout to “apathy.”

Ewoodzie said he would rather approach the non-voting tendencies in the same way he approaches social behaviors, i.e., by living within them. Applied to voting, he argued that external factors influence how people vote.

“We have made life hard, and civic engagement can start to feel like one other thing that I need to do,” said Ewoodzie, adding that rising costs contribute to people deprioritizing voting.

But building communities around civic engagement can help, he added.

“If you go to communities, they have deep histories of voting and actually being important parts of the fight to get, making voting as accessible to as many people as possible,” Ewoodzie said. “It’s because the messaging, the creation of civic life, included voting. We’ve just kind of gotten away from that…we’re not joiners anymore. People don’t gather up and join clubs and leagues and social groups.”

Making election day voting a community event makes it more appealing, he says. He also serves as a residential college “magister” at Rice, encouraging students to walk to the polls together as a college community rather than as an errand to be completed.

How to bring in young voters to the polls

Shevann Steuben, vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Houston chapter, offered a companion diagnosis of voter turnout concerns.

Steuben said Texas’ lack of online or same-day voter registration creates friction for students and new residents. She pointed to the combination of registration deadlines, voter-identification rules, livelihood pressures, and address-related suspense status as obstacles that can weigh on students and young adults.

Young people right now are struggling to go to school and get jobs that are well-paying.

“If I choose between voting and paying my rent, it’s kind of a chicken and egg conversation,” Steuben said to the Defender. “It’s not a lack of care. A lot of the time, it’s that they have been made not to care…that might be through voter fatigue. It may be because the issues that they care about, they continue to happen. It desensitized them, and it could be a lack of education. They don’t know who to be mad at.”

Pushing for “intergenerational organizing,” Steuben suggests pairing lived history with current events. Instead of “talking down” to young voters, she suggests providing more contemporary examples of why they should care.

“1965 may not work in 2026, but at least we know that was a tactic,” she said.