Vice President Kamala Harris She is desperate to introduce a new series of policy proposals aimed at attracting black men as she grapples with weak polling tied to the key demographic.
The Democratic presidential nominee’s proposal, called the Opportunity Agenda for Black Men, includes five core initiatives, and its unveiling coincides with his swing through urban areas looking to engage a critical mass of voters. Trying to get away from what the top Dems think they are doing.
“We have yet to see the same energy and turnout across all sectors of our neighborhoods and communities that we saw when I was running,” former Dem President Barack Obama acknowledged during a stop at a Pittsburgh campaign office last week. ” “Now, I also want to say that this seems to be more evident with brothers.”
Harris has five main proposals: $1 million in loans to Black small business entrepreneurs that are “fully forgivable up to $20,000”; Investing in training and mentorship programs, creating rules to protect Black people from cryptocurrency scams, establishing a national health equity initiative to tackle issues like sickle cell disease, and legalizing marijuana.
For some, the new initiative is seen as coming too late to the game, with Election Day only three weeks away.
“Wow, it’s been the last three weeks. … The ballots are in the mailboxes,” said former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is supporting Harris. to politico“We should not break the glass here because we have reached the emergency point.”
Before Harris topped the 2024 Democratic ticket, President Biden had long struggled to energize black voters in the 2024 season, a group widely seen as crucial to helping him survive the 2020 Democratic primaries. Credit given.
Now that Harris is the standard bearer, she has generally achieved good polling numbers with black women, but largely lagged behind with black men, especially amid a growing gender gap among voters.
The Vice President recently received 83% support from black women and 70% from black men New York Times/Siena PollOverall, Harris generally polled 78% of black voters, compared to 15% leaning toward former President Donald Trump in that survey.
Other polls have shown that he fares poorly with those groups, and polling is perhaps an even bigger concern.
cnn political data guru Harry Enten recently assessed that Harris is trending toward winning black voters between the ages of 18 and 44 by a margin of 41 percentage points, which would be the smallest for a Democrat since the 1960s and That would be significantly less than Obama’s 81-point margin in 2012.
His new initiative comes just days after Obama was caught on camera complaining about the anemic support for Harris among black men during her stay in Pittsburgh.
A frustrated Obama speculated that part of the problem was concerns about “having a woman as president.” Obama was the first black president. If Harris wins, she will become the second black president and the first female commander-in-chief.
The Trump-Vance campaign immediately condemned Obama’s “tough talk”, calling it “insulting” to black voters and insisting that “black Americans are not a monolith.”
Harris had previously said she would have to work for the black vote. During a National Association of Black Journalists panel last month, Harris stressed, “It’s very important not to operate from the assumption that black people are in someone’s pocket.”
As part of her Opportunity Agenda for Black Men, which the Harris-Walz campaign announced Monday, Harris and her team plan to increase outreach to Black voters.
That includes a town hall with Charlamagne Tha God, host of the “Breakfast Club” radio program that she will tape Tuesday. The campaign will also run “Black Men Huddle Up” events in key battleground-state cities during the election and expand related advertising and community-organizing efforts.
Former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) said, “While Vice President Harris is promising to equip black people with the tools they need to pursue our dreams and aspirations, Donald Trump is making black people in America a national nightmare. “Promising to make.” In a statement, Harris-Walz campaign co-chairs.
(Tags to translate)Politics(T)US News(T)2024 Presidential Election(T)Barack Obama(T)Black(T)Donald Trump(T)Kamala Harris
