WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama had frank words for black men who may be considering sitting out the election.
“Part of it makes me think that you just don’t like the idea of having a woman as president and that you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for it,” he told Harris-Walz campaign volunteers and on Thursday Officials at a field office in Pittsburgh.
America’s first black president struck a nerve among Democrats worried about Vice President Kamala Harris’ chances of becoming the second.
Harris is banking on Black turnout in battleground states like Pennsylvania in her tight race with Republican Donald Trump, who has focused on energizing men of all races and has sought to gain traction among black men in particular.
Obama’s comments suggest that black men still overwhelmingly support Harris. But her campaign and allies have worked tough to shore up support among this critical group of voters — and answer questions about potential misogyny.
Black Americans are the most Democratic demographic in the country, with black men second only to black women in their support for Democrats.
A recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about seven in 10 black voters had a favorable view of Harris and her lead over Trump’s on several key policy issues, including the economy, health care and abortion. preferred, immigration and the war between Israel and Hamas.
There was little difference in support for Harris between black men and black women.
But Khalil Thompson, co-founder and executive director of Win With Black Men, said he agreed with what he said was Obama’s main concern.
“I believe that President Obama expresses a tangible, profound understanding of what it means for all men to have relationships with women in America. There is nothing wrong with denouncing misogyny,” said Thompson, whose group raised more than $1.3 million for Harris from 20,000 black men in the 24 hours after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July and gave way to Harris .
Win With Black Men has organized weekly calls and events to boost Harris’ standing among black men. The wave of activism focused on combating misinformation in Black communities about Harris, as well as highlighting the political priorities of Black men, which the group noted often focus on greater economic opportunity, unthreatening communities, social justice policies and health care. especially for the partners and children of black men.
“We’re not a monolith,” Thompson said. “But we are like every other American in this country who wants to have a good-paying job that we can offer our children and be a part of their lives and that of our partner,” that we can bring them home safely, that we can afford , go to the grocery store, save a little for retirement and take a vacation.”
Harris said she believes Black men’s votes must be earned, like any voting group.
Black men “are not in our pockets,” she said at a panel discussion at the National Association of Black Journalists in September.
Harris recently sat down with the “All The Smoke” podcast, hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, to discuss her racial identity and political issues of interest to black men. On Tuesday, Harris will appear in Detroit for a live conversation with Charlamagne tha God, a prominent black media personality.
The Harris campaign is conducting a series of outreach efforts to black voters, including a homecoming tour of historically black colleges and universities, a series of radio and television ads targeting black voters in key states, and a campaign to Voter engagement engaging Black communities, complementing the work of allied groups like Win With Black Men.
It has also recruited high-profile surrogates, including politicians, business leaders, professional athletes and musicians, to court black men.
“We need to get our black men to vote,” former NBA star Magic Johnson said at a recent Harris rally in Flint, Michigan. “Kamala’s opponent promised the black community many things that he failed to deliver. And we need to make sure we help black men understand that.”
The Trump campaign and its allies have held black men’s roundtables and conducted a bus tour of swing states that included cookouts in cities like Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia. The campaign expects the former president’s appeals on issues such as the economy, immigration and established gender roles to resonate with some black men.
Earlier this year, Trump mused that the criminal charges filed against him in four separate indictments, one of which resulted in a conviction and another in dismissal, made him more accessible to black people.
“A lot of people said that the reason black people liked me was because they were so badly hurt and discriminated against, and they actually saw me as discriminated against,” he told a black conservative audience in South Carolina.
Trump’s support among black, white and Hispanic male voters worries senior Harris campaign officials as the election becomes increasingly divided along gender lines, with Harris stronger among women and Trump stronger among men.
But the debate over the extent to which misogyny plays a role among some black men who do not support Harris misses a broader discussion about how black men engage in politics as full citizens, argues Philip Agnew, founder of the grassroots political organization Black Men Build.
“Being a black man in the United States means being simultaneously invisible and hypervisible, and neither is a humanizing view,” Agnew said.
Agnew’s group traveled to ten cities over the summer, hosting roundtables with black men and advocating for civic engagement and progressive politics. Agnew said many black men in these conversations expressed anger toward politics, a feeling shared by many Americans, in addition to the feeling that their political perspectives were often misunderstood or unappreciated.
“The Black men I know care incredibly about the lives of our families and our communities,” Agnew said. “We ask questions out of love for our sisters and not out of a lack of love.”
