Democratic presidential candidate and US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to members of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, September 17, 2024.
Piroschka van de Wouw | Piroschka van de Wouwreuther
Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday laid out how her economic proposals could specifically help young Black men, a key Democratic voting bloc that polls show former Republican President Donald Trump is seeing gains in this election.
“I think it’s really important that black men don’t operate under the assumption that they’re in somebody’s pocket,” Harris said in an interview with a panel from the National Association of Black Journalists. “I’m working for the right to vote, not because I think I have the right to vote because I’m black.”
A new poll released Friday by civil rights group the NAACP found that more than a quarter of black men under 50 support Trump over Harris.
Harris has focused on economic arguments to win votes, telling NABJ that she embarked on an “economic opportunity tour focused on Black men” earlier this year before announcing her candidacy.
She also mentioned her efforts to “raise billions more dollars” for regional banks to expand access to startup capital.
“There are a lot of entrepreneurs in our community who don’t have access to capital. They have great ideas, incredible work ethic, ambition, aspirations, dreams … but they don’t necessarily have the financing or the connections necessary to grow their small businesses,” Harris said.
The Democratic presidential candidate cited proposals such as a $50,000 tax credit for small businesses and removing medical debt from credit scores — two proposals she sees as addressing historic economic disparities within the Black community.
“If they’re better off financially, we’re all better off,” Harris said.
Such proposals could help Harris address two clear weaknesses for the Democratic Party this election cycle: public perception of the economy and young black men, who tend to vote for Trump.
Before Harris took over the Democratic nomination from President Joe Biden in July, an NBC News poll found that 25% of black voters ages 18 to 49 supported Trump over Biden.
Biden won 92% of black voters in the 2020 election, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, and the prospect that Democrats could lose a quarter of voting-age black adults to Republicans has raised alarm bells.
Polls have shown that Trump’s unusual strength among black voters in this election may be due in part to nostalgia for the pre-pandemic economy that he led.
The rising cost of living has become a top concern for voters under the Biden-Harris administration as the U.S. economy makes a fragile recovery from high inflation after the pandemic.
While Harris is pitching herself as the economic relief candidate, her campaign is also working to shore up support among black voters.
During an interview with NABJ reporters in July, Trump came under fire for criticizing Harris’ racial identity, calling her a “DEI hire,” and scolding the interviewers for asking about past comments about Black people that have been criticized by both Democrats and Republicans as racist.
“It was the same old show: divisive and disrespectful,” Harris said of Trump’s appearance on NABJ on Tuesday. “Let me just say that the American people deserve better.”
