Bill Maher says polls prove Democrats 'pandering' to minority voters isn't working, as he slams Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer for donning traditional Ghanaian Kente cloth outfits

Bill Maher warned Democrats they should focus on class and education instead of race if they want to win the presidential election.

The comedian spent eight minutes of his Real Time show imploring them to 'move on' from 'identity politics' because it was losing them voters.

Polls show support for Democrats among non-white Americans is at its lowest ebb in 60 years, and Donald Trump is polling far better with them than in 2020.

Maher said this showed Americans were more complicated in their identities than ever before and 'don't fit into neat little boxes anymore'.

Bill Maher warned Democrats they should focus on class and education instead of race if they want to win the presidential election

'I do give a s**t about who wins the next election. And outdated racial pandering is one reason Democrats lose elections,' he said on his HBO show. 

'When Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi put on Kente cloth, I don't think it earned them one vote for their powerful emotional ties to Ghana.'

Maher argued Democrats hadn't figured this out yet because they were still appealing to racial groups, and assuming they had them in the bag.

'You're still building your politics around slicing and dicing people into these fixed categories,' he said.

'Democrats need to get the memo that you can't win elections anymore by automatically assuming you're going to get every voter who's not [white men].'

Maher, who often disagrees with Democratic positions but wants Trump to lose the election, said Joe Biden's party needed to refocus on other issues.

'The more you obsess over identity, the more you ignore the bread and butter issues that win and lose elections,' he said.

'The real issue is class, not race. And the real gap is the diploma divide. And the real future of the party and maybe democracy depends on Democrats figuring that out.'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress, kneel and observe a moment of silence, reading the names of George Floyd and others killed by police

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Kamala Harris and fellow Congressional Democrats  unveil legislation to combat police violence and racial injustice after weeks of protests over George Floyd's death

Recent polling indicates a shift of black and Hispanic voters to Republicans, eroding a coalition that propelled Biden to the White House in 2020.

It also showed the voting gap between college educated Americans and those with only high school was growing, which was Maher's 'diploma divide' point.

A New York Times/Siena College poll earlier this month showed Biden only led Trump 56 to 44 per cent among non-white Americans.

Biden won this group by nearly 50 per cent in 2020, indicating a massive shift over the past three years.

The president still held a commanding lead of 71 to 20 per cent of black voters asked who they would support in a head-to-head race, compared to 87 per cent in 2020.

But Trump was ahead 45 to 43 per cent among Hispanics after Biden carried that demographic 65 to 32 in 2020.

The same poll showed voters with a university education favored Biden 55 to 38, and that support was reversed 36 to 55 for those without.

Democrats' percentage of party affiliation more broadly also eroded over the past three years, dropping 20 per cent among black voters.

Two-thirds of black adults identify as Democratic or lean that way, and just 19 per cent identify as or lean Republican, according to a Gallup poll.

But this lead was 77 to 11 per cent in 2020 when the black vote won states like Georgia for Biden. 

The Democratic lead among Hispanic voters also fell from 28 per cent in 2020 to just 12 per cent, now standing at 47 to 35 per cent.

Democrats have a slight edge among Hispanic adults but it is the smallest gap since Gallup began tracking in 2011

Democrats have an advantage among black adults but the gap has dramatically shrunk nearly 20 points over the last three years alone

Much of the racial shift is attributed to black and Hispanic voters being more conservative about many issues than whites.

Non-white voters who long held more conservative views and are now shifting their votes to reflect their ideology. 

Positions on abortion and the size of government make these communities more natural Republicans, and many more describe themselves as conservatives.

For many years they supported Democrats anyway, due to policies on civil rights and immigration - but as time passes, they become less important.

In 2012, three quarters of black self-identified conservatives voted for Democrats or described themselves as backing that party - now it is less than half.

However, the same Gallup poll noted education differences were becoming more decisive over time, from being very small before 2013 to huge now.

Democrats held a 14 per cent lead in non-college-educated voters in 1999, which flipped to 14 per cent Republican by 2023.

At the same time, the Democratic advantage among voters with postgraduate degrees jumped from eight to 29 per cent, and from negative eight to plus five per cent among those with at least a bachelors degree.

Maher read out quotes from minority celebrities like Idris Elba, Raven-Symoné, and Morgan Freeman who said they didn't want to be identified by their race.

He also pointed out that the US was less racially divided as 20 per cent of marriages were interracial, and there was a 276 per cent jump in people describing themselves as mixed-race.

Non-white voters long held more conservative views and are now shifting their votes to reflect their ideology

To humorously illustrate his point, he listed people who were in positions incongruous with what would be expected of their race.

They included Beyonce's number-one country music hit and Lil Nas, who was both black and gay, winning a country music award.

'Two-thirds of Republican voters support weed legalization. And 41 per cent of Democrats own or live with someone who owns a gun. Ms Marvel is Pakistani and the winner of the last two NBA dunk contests is white,' he said. 

Maher pointed out that Latinos made up half of the Border Patrol, RuPaul has a ranch in Wyoming that does fracking, and the leader of the Proud Boys was and Afro-Cuban named Enrique Tarrio.

He added that Caitlyn Jenner was a pro-Trump trans woman who supported a ban on trans athletes competing in women's sports.

'Far-left liberals are living in an old paradigm. Americans don't fit into neat little boxes anymore,' he said.

'In America now, you're allowed to be many things all at once and that's a good thing, even when it's really stupid.'