Democrats hopeful black voters will stop flirtation with Donald Trump

CHICAGO — With Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, party members are once again confident that black voters, in particular black male voters disaffected with President Joe Biden, are more likely to support the ticket during the November election.

Biden was bleeding some black voter support while he led the ticket as the public soured over the economy, inflation, and the president’s increasingly frail public appearances. The rising dissatisfaction with Biden helped former President Donald Trump increase poll numbers with black voters.

But after Harris, the nation’s first black and South Asian vice president, replaced Biden, Democrats are cautiously hopeful that the excitement over her campaign will persuade black voters back into the party fold and block Trump from peeling off black men voters.

“As chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and as a black man myself, obviously, I never bought into this narrative that black men were not engaged,” said Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV). “We have a point of view: 87% of black men vote and vote consistently. Over 92% of black women vote and vote consistently. So I just never bought into this narrative. Some voters, no matter what their ethnicity, choose to vote Republican. That’s their prerogative, and Donald Trump has no ideas.”

Black women and black men both staged Zoom calls for Harris within hours or days of Biden ending his campaign on July 21, raising millions of dollars in support of the vice president. This week Black Men Vote PAC announced an investment of $4 million to reach black men in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the blue wall of battleground states Harris must win in order to secure the presidency.

Harris’s black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha launched its first super PAC last week while the Divine Nine, a collective of black Greek organizations, are mobilizing a massive get-out-the-vote operation to increase black voter turnout.

Florida delegate Nikki Barnes told the Washington Examiner that after Biden’s exit, the party saw a huge spike in volunteers. “We saw volunteers in Florida sign up: 7,000 in four days, 10,000 by the weekend. I believe we’re at 27,000 volunteers in Florida who have signed up,” said Barnes. “A lot of them are black men. A lot of them see their mothers, their sisters, their wives, their cousins and Kamala, and they understand that when you put a black woman in charge to get some stuff done, it’s gonna get done. So yeah, the enthusiasm is there.”

That excitement has translated into a polling advantage. A recent Suffolk University/USA Today poll showed Harris overwhelmingly leading Trump, 70%-9%, among black voters in Michigan and, 70%-11%, among black voters in Pennsylvania.

Nearly 70% of black voters in July supported Harris over Trump in a hypothetical ballot, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. This was an increase from 59% who backed Biden in May and June surveys. But in a worrying sign for Democrats, Trump’s polling with black voters in July reached 12% up from 9% in May and June.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who served in the Senate with Harris, claimed that the vice president has already closed the gap with black men.

“I mean, I’m looking at the numbers, it shifted dramatically as soon as she entered the race. So it’s already happened,” he said. “Look, this is ultimately a campaign and an energy and an excitement and enthusiasm that’s not coming from popularity. It’s coming from this profound yearning I’m seeing in America who want to turn a page.”

Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA) echoed Booker’s comments in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “What she has been doing, particularly over the past five weeks, has turned a lot of those folks around,” said Bishop. “There were African American men who were, for some strange reason, leaning toward Trump, who are now saying: ‘well, maybe I’ll take another look’ because she has demonstrated the energy, the dynamism, that I guess they were not feeling with President Biden.”

The Trump campaign and surrogates remain adamant that they can still win enough black male voters to deny Harris the White House. “I was doing very well with black voters, and I still am. I seem to be doing very well with black males. This is according to polls,” Trump bragged at a press conference earlier this month at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), a top surrogate for Trump attempting to persuade more black men to buck the Democratic Party, slammed Harris’s campaign Tuesday during a GOP press conference in Chicago. “Joy and vibes isn’t going to put food on the table,” Donalds told reporters as he spoke at the Trump Hotel Chicago.

“You could be happy and you could be hungry all at the same time,” he warned about Harris’s economic proposals.

Donalds, along with Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), another top black Republican, have hosted a “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” series in major cities in battleground states targeting black men.

For black women, the possibility of Harris breaking the glass ceiling has galvanized them with renewed energy after some caution that she would get passed over given her high unfavorability numbers and other ambitious Democrats such as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) who were itching to become Biden’s heir-apparent.

“What I was fearful of when the conversation started was, were people going to try and push the vice president aside and not let her have the moment?” said Selvena Brooks-Powers, a New York City Council member from Queens, New York.

Harris, however, quickly coalesced the party around her presidential campaign, effectively blocking any other high-profile Democrat from challenging her campaign. Part of that consolidation came from the 44,000 black women who kicked off the first fundraising Zoom call for the vice president. “I was on the call. The first 44,000 black women. It was an amazing feeling,” said Brooks-Powers.

Fellow New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams was beaming with excitement at her first Democratic National Convention and what it means for women and women of color.

“This is probably the most exciting thing that I’ve ever done in my entire life,” Adams said. “I’m so excited to be here as a New York delegate as the first black speaker of the New York City Council leading the first woman majority city council in the history of the city of New York.”

Adams claimed that “black America needed this spark,” by replacing Biden who remains beloved in the party. “But now, with Vice President Kamala Harris on board to be our candidate, I think the sky is the limit as far as the black vote is concerned, there’s no stopping us now,” she said.