Black leaders voice confidence Black men will show up for Harris

Vice President Harris and her allies are making a final appeal to Black male voters in key swing states, hoping to shore up the support of a voting bloc that has shown some signs of skepticism toward the Democratic nominee.

Over the last week, Harris has promoted her "Opportunity Agenda for Black Men," hit the airwaves with popular radio star Charlamagne tha God and visited barbershops around the country to reach out to Black men.

Polls suggest the effort is helping her.

The Alliance for Black Equality, a super PAC mobilizing Black voters in swing states, found that Harris increased her support by 10 points with Black Generation Z men since early October.

“I do think we're going to turn out in this election. I do think we're going to participate,” Khalil Thompson, founder of Win With Black Men, told The Hill.

Thompson also said Harris’s focus on abortion rights will resonate with Black men.

A 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll from September found that 71 percent of Black men believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Nearly half also believe that elected officials should work to protect fertility treatment, birth control and emergency contraception.

When Harris announced her campaign in July, more than 53,000 Black men joined a virtual event with Win With Black Men and raised $1.3 million in four hours.

But there’s no denying Harris’s support among the demographic has since dropped.

An October University of Chicago GenForward poll found that 26 percent of Black men between the ages of 18 and 40 said they would vote for former President Trump, compared to only 12 percent of Black women.

Part of the drive toward the GOP, former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) told The Hill, can be attributed to Black men not feeling heard.

There’s a focus on them before an election, but “the rest of the year is radio silence,” Barnes said.

Barnes said this lack of engagement is going to keep Black men from the ballot box completely, regardless of their feelings toward either candidate.

He also said some might find Trump’s relative lack of political experience appealing.

“Donald Trump being someone who is so far out of the mainstream, even in his own party — the party that he has created, the party that he has built in his own image — but him being so far out of what has generally been accepted in politics, some people are going to be a little bit drawn, or at least be curious about it, because it's so different,” Barnes said.

Harris generally has dismissed polling showing her struggling with Black men, telling "The Breakfast Club" last week what she is hearing on the ground is very different.

“The brothers aren’t saying that,” she said. “I was just at a barbershop in Philly talking with very incredible and distinguished men who are leaders in their community in small business and education. And these men, these Black men, were talking about not only their support for me but most importantly their support for my perspective on what we can do that lifts up the community and taps into the ambitions and the aspirations.”

Darius Jones, founder and president of the National Black Empowerment Council, said that even if Harris were to lose 20 percent of Black male voter support — and still win 80 percent — it should still be seen as a success.

“There's not a politician in the world who, if presented with the opportunity to get 80 percent of any demographic, would not view that as an overwhelming victory,” Jones said. “So to have eight out of 10 Black men vote in the exact same way that African American women voted, seems to me to be tremendous solidarity within the community as it relates to these issues. The notion that there is division is so exaggerating, it really makes me question, what is the real motivation behind driving that talking point?”

The conversation that Black men won’t vote for Harris, Jones added, unnecessarily pits Black men against Black women.

Thompson believes that Black men will show up for Harris in staggering numbers — in part because of the unfair pressure that’s been put on them since Harris’s campaign launch.

“What I think is funny is that Black voters helped build this country for free and we're asking now Black voters come out and save us yet again,” Thompson said. “I don't think we should be the ones that this is all on our backs to save America.”

Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright predicted Black men won’t let Harris down.

“The one thing about the Black man that has been historic with us is that we do our best not let the Black family unit down — in particular, letting our mothers down and letting the women in our life down. And I think that that is going to be the story of tomorrow night: We did not let our sister down.”