Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris will next week highlight her economic policies that benefit Black men, hoping to energize a voting bloc that some advisers fear has embraced Republican rival Donald Trump in large numbers, three sources familiar with the plans said.
The policy focus will coincide with an event in Detroit on Tuesday where Harris will be interviewed by popular Black radio personality Charlamagne tha God, who has been critical of the Biden administration, the sources said.
Harris will discuss access to capital for Black entrepreneurs, ways to grow small businesses and housing solutions but will not touch on racial justice issues, the sources said. The policies will borrow from her broader economic package aimed at lowering costs and boosting the middle class, they added.
The Harris campaign did not comment.
Harris and Trump are locked in a tight race ahead of the Nov. 5 election, which is expected to be decided by slim margins and where neither side can afford large-scale defections from the main voter bases their parties count on.
The proposals will be informed by a round of economic opportunity tours Harris took earlier this year, before she became a presidential candidate, that focused on Black men and featured stops in Atlanta and Detroit.
If elected, Harris would be the second Black president and first Black woman in the office. Some Democrats view the vice president’s relatively soft support from Black men as a significant concern in the election, while others argue the bloc is being scapegoated for broader weaknesses in her campaign.
Over a quarter of young Black men say they would support Trump in the election race, a September poll by the NAACP, the nation’s largest civil rights organization, showed. U.S. President Joe Biden got about 80% of the Black male vote in 2020.
The Trump campaign has said it has been targeting Black voters in battleground states by teaming up with Black rappers as well as through community events and small business roundtables in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada.
Trump has also been courting Black voters by saying they stand to lose jobs to migrants coming across the border.
On Thursday, former President Barack Obama delivered a stern rebuke to Black men, who he said were “coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses” not to back Harris.
“Part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” Obama said.
Some in the Black community took offense to Obama’s remarks.
“Black men and Black women do not vote much differently, it’s wrong to single out Black men when Black men are the most loyal male voting block for Democrats,” Nina Turner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, said on the social media platform X.
Harris has told campaign staff they need to do more outreach to Black men, including rallies and events that put them centerstage, one of the sources with knowledge of the matter said.
Charlamagne, a comedian and author whose nationally syndicated show is popular with Black millennials, said the event in the swing state of Michigan would include a local audience who can ask Harris questions.
“I know we’ve got some pressing issues to talk about,” Charlamagne said on his program on Friday.