Polls suggest Black men are drifting from the Democratic Party and embracing former President Donald Trump, and Cornel West says it is due to “Scarface” syndrome.

Mr. West, who is running against President Biden as an independent, says the president is seeing the slippage in part because he can’t compete with Mr. Trump on the gangster yardstick, epitomized by the 1983 film where Al Pacino plays a murderous Cuban drug boss.

“It could be the hypermasculinity that they see in Trump,” Mr. West, a prominent Black academic, told reporters. “You know, you got a whole wave of young black brothers who are in love with ‘Scarface.’”

That’s one theory among many as political pros try to explain Mr. Trump attracting members of a voting bloc that used to be considered Democrats’ most reliable, and who rescued Mr. Biden‘s campaign in the 2020 Democratic primary.

Mr. Biden would go on to win 92% of the Black vote in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.

Things are shaping up differently for a Trump-Biden do-over.

Mr Biden‘s approval rating is in the tank, and voters across demographic groups are not thrilled about the 81-year-old serving another four-year term.

A New York Times/Siena College national survey released this week found 17% of Black voters backing Mr. Trump.

Even worse for Mr. Biden was the same pollsters’ survey of six battleground states last month that found Mr. Trump with 22% of Black voters’ support in a hypothetical rematch. That would be nearly three times his 2020 share of the Black vote.

Chris Walton, former chairman of the Milwaukee County Democrats in Wisconsin, said the poll findings are baffling given, among other things, how Black unemployment has sunk from 9.2% to 5.8% and inflation has cooled off.

“These polls just don’t seem accurate,” Mr. Walton said.  “Who is answering these polls? It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

He also mocked Mr. West’s ‘Scarface’ theory.

“We are picking a president, not a damn mafia don,” Mr. Walton said. “That is one of the dumbest things I heard out of this election so far.”

To be sure, Black voters are still Mr. Biden‘s strongest supporters out of any basic demographic polled.

But any slippage could be devastating because Black voters were nearly a third of eligible voters in Georgia in 2020 and were 13% of Michigan, 10% of Pennsylvania and 6% of Wisconsin, according to Pew.

Mr. West’s theory centers heavily on voters turning to Mr. Trump.

Charlamagne Tha God, host of “The Breakfast Club,” a syndicated radio show, has also cited Mr. Trump‘s attraction, pointing to the pandemic-era stimulus checks and the former president’s signature on prison sentence reduction legislation as reasons some Black voters give Mr. Trump a look.

Mr. West also mentioned Mr. Biden‘s role in passing the 1996 Crime Bill that progressives have blamed for filling up prisons with Black Americans.

In an interview with Chris Wallace for CNN, Charlamagne added that Democrats suffer from having taken Black voters for granted.

There’s also a sense that Mr. Biden himself has lost luster, particularly as inflation pummels those living paycheck to paycheck. Mr. Biden‘s embrace of Israel in its war with Hamas may also be playing a role, as it’s younger Black voters who seem the most willing to break with their longtime political home.

Mr. Walton said Black voters will rally behind Mr. Biden when the general election campaign comes into more focus and the president’s team talks more about his record on the economy, abortion rights and childcare.

Indeed, polling in the fall of 2020 showed Mr. Trump gaining ground with Black voters, only to end up at about the same level as other Republican presidential hopefuls. Still, for a man decried by Democrats as the most racist president in modern times, that’s something.

Mr. Biden says he doesn’t believe surveys showing him losing support.

“You’re reading the wrong polls,” he recently told reporters.

His campaign is reading the same polls, though, and moving to do a better job shoring up support among Black voters.

Mr. Biden took a trip to Milwaukee on Wednesday to speak to the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce, where he told them, “You brung me to the dance.”

He said he’s overseen the fastest growth in Black businesses in more than 30 years and said Black wealth is up 60% since the pandemic. He also said Black child poverty has been cut in half since he took office.

And he took swipes at Mr. Trump, saying Black businesses were put “last in line” for emergency pandemic assistance like small business loans, and said Republicans more broadly were “erasing Black history and banning books.”

That reflects Mr. Biden‘s hope to make the election less of a referendum on him, and more of a choice between himself and Mr. Trump.

“While MAGA Republicans push an extreme agenda that would harm Black and rural communities and take our country backward, a second term for President Biden and Vice President Harris would build on the work they’ve already accomplished for Black Americans and continue to deliver on the issues that matter most to our community,” said Biden campaign manager Quentin Fulks.

Cynthia Tucker, former editorial page editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in a recent op-ed for the Dallas Morning News, said the recent polls are alarming because Mr. Trump made racism fashionable again. She said Black voters will remember that over time.

“Biden will have every opportunity to point to Trump‘s racism, and Trump will make it easy,” Ms. Tucker said. “The contrast will remind Black voters — indeed, most voters of color — that keeping Trump out of the Oval Office is imperative.”

• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.