Vice President Kamala Harris outlined her vision for “hard work” in the future when she headlined a dinner at the 53rd Annual Legislative Conference hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington on Saturday — an allusion to the final campaign stretch that lies before her.
“The Congressional Black Caucus has served as the conscience of the Congress and of our nation, and as a proud former CBC member I know America relies on the leaders in this room not only for a conscience but for a vision,” Harris said in a nine-minute address before lawmakers, congressional staff and activists.
The hard work, which Harris also called joyous, starts with the vice president’s ability to make an effective policy pitch to Black voters — particularly those outside urban areas — and mobilize them to get to the polls in November. Driving up Black voter turnout is crucial to her chances of winning in swing states across the county.
“If we can get the turnout in rural Georgia, in rural North Carolina, rural Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where we’ve got sizable pockets of Black and brown voters, it puts less pressure on our urban areas, and it really allows us to run up these scores,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison told POLITICO earlier at CBC week. “It's going to be the reason why Kamala Harris is going to be elected 47th president.”
Harris and her vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have campaigned in Savannah, Georgia as well as Atlanta, in Grand Rapids, Michigan in addition to Detroit, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as well as Philadelphia.
Campaign co-chair Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), who is also chair of the CBC, said increased campaign stops in rural and less-blue-leaning areas was “intentional” and something he said in an interview that campaign co-chairs regularly discuss. At the Democratic National Convention in August, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) also previewed this strategy and its successes in his Senate campaigns and Quentin Fulks, who ran those efforts, is now also a principal deputy campaign manager to Harris.
“If they can make a dent in those red areas that will make a huge difference in the entire state,” said Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.), who is also a surrogate for the campaign and whose district is about 56 percent non-white residents. “So it's making sure that we leave no community behind because we're everywhere.”
At the CBC’s Phoenix Awards Dinner, Harris highlighted her campaign policy pitches. She earned a standing ovation for her plan to lower prescription drug prices, a frequent refrain on the campaign trail.
“We actually have a plan for healthcare, not just concepts of a plan,” Harris joked from the podium, referencing former President Donald Trump’s answer to a question at last Tuesday’s debate.
Though there is continuity in platform and campaign staff between President Joe Biden's and now-Harris’ campaign, instead of a doom-and-gloom warning over lofty democratic ideals, Harris has emphasized a more practical message of freedom focused on economic opportunity and reproductive rights.
“The shift that she made from talking about democracy broadly as something that feels like it's in a law book somewhere to talking specifically about freedoms has been really critical,” said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, a group that focuses on turning out and educating Black voters. She added that the erosion of rights and freedoms regularly comes up in focus groups as a major concern for Black voters.
But Harris’ surrogates and allies stress that there’s still significant work to be done to turn out the vote.
In 2020, roughly 90 percent of Black voters supported Joe Biden, but that was down from closer to 95 percent in the few elections preceding that one. The network exit poll four years ago did show Black voters between the ages of 30 and 44 were twice as likely to support Trump (19 percent) as those 18 to 29 (10 percent), 45 to 60 (10 percent) or 60 and older (7 percent).
Younger Black men, in particular, have been straying from the Democratic party. The NAACP released a poll on Friday that found one in four younger Black men are backing her Republican opponent Donald Trump. The survey, conducted in partnership with HIT Strategies and Hart Research, found overall 63 percent of Black voters favored Harris compared to 13 percent that backed Trump.
The gender gap is significant. Two-thirds of Black women (67 percent) back Harris, but among Black men under 50 Harris’ support plummets to 49 percent. Researchers caution the poll was conducted in early August – before both the Democratic convention and this week’s presidential debate – and say late-deciding voters may break for Harris.
Harrison said he believes that a combination of investments from the Democratic Party as well as a focus on Harris’ new economic policy will be key to winning over Black voters.
Wes Bellamy, board member of the organization One Hundred Black Men of America, a non-profit organization focused on mentoring African American men, has also been working to combat what he calls misinformation about Harris’ record and is in the middle of a 21-city tour focused on getting Black men to vote this November. He said that her record as a prosecutor and concerns about protecting the second amendment are typical.
“When we hear situations like they're gonna take away all of our guns, there's no information or policies for Black men specifically. Like talking about all of those things are what we have to debunk. But again, it takes time,” said Bellamy who wore a T-shirt that read: “The ancestors didn’t die for you to vote 4 Trump.”
Just how to address young Black men's concerns continues to vex the Harris surrogates and activists hoping to get her across the finish line. During a Friday conference forum on the topic, a spirited exchange erupted over whether Harris herself is at fault for not directly speaking directly to Black men or have a plank in her newly-released platform that addresses specific needs of this crucial voting bloc.
“We need her to say: Black men, here’s what I’m willing to do for you,” said Joe Paul, Executive Director of Black Men Vote, a voter advocacy group that is working to mobilize voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Philadelphia this cycle.
He then rattled off a list of issues that could help her reach Black male voters, including the need to specify what changes Harris would make to the criminal justice system that will impact the lives of Black men and to create opportunities for economic security and build inter-generational wealth.
“We need to hear directly from the candidate because guess what, neither one of them are speaking to Black men. Let's be real,” he said. “You cannot say we need more Black men to vote before [you] address our issues.”
Harris also has softer support from younger Black voters overall, according to both the NAACP poll and a recent survey from Pew Research Center — a demographic that has also been active in Pro-Palestininan protests in the last year.
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who lost her primary earlier this year, said in an interview that she sees a parallel between the protest movements around Black Lives Matter in 2020 and the current pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The difference last cycle was those activists channeled their support behind Biden.
“We remember how Joe Biden won,” Bush said, of Black voters. “He already had his base… But he also had a grand push from the activists who were on the ground where millions of people stood and pushed and marched — George Floyd, breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many more — who then took that fire and fierceness, that persistence, and turned it into mobilizing to turn out the vote.”
For Harris, the election may hinge if she can reconnect the energy she is infusing into the campaign to a turnout operation that rivals past successful Democratic nominees.
“Black voters are well positioned to turn out in historic numbers,” Shropshire, of BlackPAC, said. “[But] it will not happen without the necessary work, right? It will not happen if we do not increase knocks on doors, it will not happen if we don't increase mail and digital, if we're not countering what the Trump campaign is [doing] within Black communities, then we're going to lose people.”
Steven Shepard contributed reporting.
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