What the polls really say about black men's support for Kamala Harris

In early October, shortly before Kamala Harris spoke at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan, NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson took the stage to provide some insight into the candidate and her campaign. Johnson, a Michigan native,'s decision to introduce Harris made sense for several reasons. He is committed to helping people with HIV/AIDS— he has been HIV-positive for more than thirty years — and Harris helped lead the Biden administration's efforts to end the epidemic by 2030. He is co-chair of the Athletes for Harris coalition. And since officially retiring from basketball in 1996, he has been known almost as much for his shrewd investments in movie theaters and sports franchises as for his prowess as a point guard. In Flint, Johnson congratulated the Detroit Tigers on their playoff berth, praised Harris for her economic proposals and then spoke about a specific segment of the electorate. “We have to get our black men to vote,” he said. “Kamala’s opponent promised the black community a lot of things last time that he didn’t keep, and we need to make sure we help black men understand that.”

Johnson addressed a concern that has been alternately murmured and shouted in Democratic circles as Election Day approaches: that Democrats are vulnerable with one of their most loyal constituencies, African-American men. The statistical stalemate facing the two major party candidates has led to a kind of obsessive demographic splitting to predict the outcome of the election. In the traumatic aftermath of the 2016 campaign, progressives blamed white women, over fifty percent of whom, according to early reports, voted for Donald Trump compared to 43 percent for Hillary Clinton. (A later analysis found the numbers were closer to 47 percent for Trump and 45 percent for Clinton, but it was still a win.) This year, black men came under particular scrutiny as a potential weak link.

A headline in an August “PBS NewsHour” story said, “Trump Gains Ground Among Some Black Men.” That same month, Mother Jones published a story titled “I spent a week with Black MAGA. Here's what I learned.” A Just The piece began with “Black Men Rally for Kamala Harris and Confront an Elephant in the Room.” Trump himself chimed in, remarking, “I seem to do very well with black men.” According to a recent report from AP-NORC In one survey, only one in ten black voters believe Trump would “change the country for the better,” and eight in ten have a somewhat or very negative view of him. According to Pew, Trump won fourteen percent of black male voters in 2016, compared to just twelve percent in 2020. But there was enough concern among Democrats that the Harris campaign gave the comedian a spot on the final night of the Democratic National Convention DL Hughley delivers the rarest form of an endorsement speech: an apology.

Hughley admitted that because Harris had been a prosecutor, he made assumptions about her and “often repeated them to many people.” But he added: “I was wrong. And I'm so glad I was wrong because Kamala, you give me hope for the future.” He said that Harris contacted him to discuss his doubts and that he then found out about her career as a public servant have. He now describes himself as a “vocal supporter” of Harris. Radio host Charlamagne tha God offered a similar conversion narrative. After previously lamenting Harris' relatively low profile in the Biden administration, he said in a CNN interview this summer that he had “unrealistic expectations” of her as vice president. He cites Harris' support for mental health funding and her economic plans as reasons he now supports her. This week he is scheduled to air a special with Harris as a guest.

Regardless of perception, however, Harris is doing better with black male voters than Joe Biden did earlier in the year. According to a recent Pew poll, 73 percent will vote for her or are leaning toward voting for her. Even in mid-July, before Biden dropped out of the race, Harris' favorability rating among black voters in battleground states exceeded his own by five points. A recent Howard University poll found that in swing states, 88 percent of black men over 50 and 72 percent of younger men say they are likely to vote for her. Still, Terrance Woodbury, head of HIT Strategies, a firm that has conducted extensive surveys of this segment of the electorate, has pointed out that the issue goes well beyond Harris as a candidate or, as Barack Obama chided last Thursday, in the field office he spoke at a Harris rally in Pittsburgh — the reluctance some black men may have to vote for a woman for president. (It's worth remembering that black men voted for Clinton in 2016 by a margin that exceeded white women's by thirty-six points.) Woodbury notes that “Democrats have experienced erosion in every election—a Erosion of two to three points among black men.” election since Barack Obama left the political stage. This isn't just a Kamala Harris problem. This is a problem with the Democratic Party.” A higher proportion of black men than black women identify as conservative. The declining number of black male Democratic voters, as well as the party's declining appeal to Latino and white working-class voters, could signal ongoing realignment. Or, as Woodbury contends, it could simply reflect the party's failure to craft messages that appeal to this part of its base.

Accordingly, the Harris campaign has prepared a package of policy initiatives that address the themes — entrepreneurship, home ownership — that keep coming up in focus groups with black male voters. But there's another dynamic that deserves mention: Trump's bombastic appeal is disproportionately male, and while young voters generally support Democrats, there is some evidence that young men could be a secret trump card for him in November. (Stephen Miller, Trump's former immigration czar, recently advised young men to proudly display their identity MAGA Likeability is the best way to impress women.) And Trump is more popular among black men under fifty than any other segment of African Americans.

The election will be shaped by a variety of dynamics, some too subtle to detect in advance. In Flint, Magic Johnson feared that black men might not understand that Trump had not kept his promises to the black community. But comparatively few of them found Trump's siren song appealing. If Kamala Harris fails to prevail in November, it will not be the fault of any single faction of voters. She will receive a large majority of the black male vote. Whether that – and the turnout of the other parts of her coalition – will be enough to secure her the presidency remains to be seen. ♦