Independent voter Azola Martin still hasn’t decided who he’s voting for in November, but he says he has reservations about Vice President Kamala Harris that have nothing to do with her gender. Martin says he primarily gets his news from social media, subscribes to some debunked myths about Harris, and may vote for former President Donald Trump.
“Her campaign, her initiatives, what she’s saying, everything’s contradicting a lot to me,” the 21-year-old Morehouse College student told Capital B Atlanta.
Harris and Trump’s battle for support from Black men in Georgia like Martin has intensified recently in response to polling data showing less overall Black support for her than there was for President Joe Biden when he was campaigning for the Oval Office in 2020.
A more-recent CBS News poll conducted by YouGov in early October determined 87% of Black likely voters would vote for Harris and just 12% would vote for Trump.
A Howard University Initiative on Public Opinion poll of Black voters in battleground states in early October revealed 83% of respondents plan to vote for Harris and only 8% back Trump.
Trump has a history of performing better with Black voters in polls than he does during elections.
Harris and Trump have released plans targeting Black men that promise to tackle inflation and increase capital for minority-owned businesses. But a Trump presidency could usher in a weakening of the Constitution, increased restrictions on abortion, and elimination of federal agencies that have historically protected Black people from discrimination.
Yet, a minority of Black voters, including a disproportionate share of Black men, have told some pollsters they don’t plan to back Harris, a trailblazing candidate vying to become the first Black woman to serve as commander in chief of the United States, prompting a debate over their reasoning.
History suggests Harris would need as many Black votes as possible to defeat Trump in Georgia, where the last presidential election was decided by less than 12,000 votes.
Nationwide, only 70% of Black men and 78% of all Black people surveyed in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll said they intend to vote for Harris this fall. In Georgia, Harris’ Black support among both men and women combined was just over 77% in September, according to the latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution/University of Georgia poll. That’s still better than the 70% of Black Georgians who told the AJC in June that they were backing Biden, but far less than the 90% of Black votes Biden received four years ago.
On Oct. 10, former President Barack Obama recently suggested sexism may be a factor for “the brothas” who aren’t voting for Harris.
Black men in metro-Atlanta have been grappling with Obama’s remarks at Republican, Democratic, and nonpartisan gatherings since they were made. Some said they were withholding support for Harris because they disagreed with her policies on Gaza or don’t trust Democrats to deliver on their promises.
In September, Harris made it clear to the National Association of Black Journalists that she knows she’s not entitled to votes from Black men or anyone else.
“Black men are like any other voting group. You’ve got to earn their vote,” she said. “I’m working to earn the vote, not assuming that I would have it because I’m Black, but because the policies and the perspectives that I have understands what we must do to recognize the needs for all communities.”
Local reaction to Obama’s comments
In 2008, 95% of Black men voted for Obama in his historic campaign to become the nation’s first Black president.
“Part of it makes me think that 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 of Black men during a discussion earlier this month with a group of Black Harris campaign staffers at a campaign office in Pittsburgh.
“You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down?” the former president said in reference to Trump. “That’s not acceptable.”
Black political analysts in Georgia have since been contextualizing or condemning Obama’s remarks.
Georgia NAACP President Gerald Griggs suggested Obama’s comments were misguided during a Jermaine Dupri-headlined “Brothers and Brews” Democratic Party campaign event aimed at Black men at the Atlantucky Brewery in downtown Atlanta on Oct. 11.
“I think a message that is inclusive to the needs of Black men will motivate Black men to turn out instead of saying we need to do this out of obligation,” Griggs told Capital B Atlanta at the event. “Black men don’t owe anybody anything. We’ve been in this country a long time. We’ve dealt with all of the same barriers, and we’ve dealt with politicians who promise a lot and deliver very little.”
Members of the Black Men for Trump advisory board joined the chorus of Obama criticism that followed, issuing a statement characterizing his comments as “deeply insulting.”
Veteran Trump campaign surrogate Bruce LeVell said Obama’s statement was a sign Trump is gaining ground with Black men. The 60-year-old Georgia businessman has been working with Atlanta-based political consultant Michaelah Montgomery, founder of Conserve the Culture, to increase support for Trump among Black men in the Peach State. Montgomery organized the focus group.
“Obviously, we threatened that base, so he had to come out and say something,” LeVell told Capital B Atlanta on Monday.
Harris’ plan for Black men?
Aiming to improve her standing with Black men, the Harris campaign released a series of proposals last week designed to address the concerns of Black men.
She also addressed the topic with The Breakfast Club radio host Charlamagne Tha God and The Shade Room before hosting an Atlanta campaign rally with Usher on Saturday and stumping at a pair of Black churches in the metro area on Sunday.
Harris supports increasing voting rights protections, instituting a federal ban on price gouging to help bring down grocery store prices, and creating tax incentives to increase the supply of affordable homes to reduce housing costs.
Her nine-page platform for Black men, dubbed the Opportunity Agenda for Black Men, includes plans to provide 1 million “fully forgivable” loans to Black entrepreneurs and others looking to start a business. It also includes promoting education, training, and mentorship programs to help Black men secure well-paying jobs in high-demand industries, such as education.
If elected, Harris’ plan says that she also would support a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and additional digital assets so the disproportionate share of Black men who’ve invested in crypto in recent years receive legal protections. The plan also calls for the launch of a National Health Equity Initiative, primarily aimed at Black men, that would address common chronic health conditions including sickle cell disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, and mental health issues.
Political strategist and Win with Black Men founder Khalil Thompson described the Opportunity Agenda as a “monumental moment” during an Oct. 14 Black men’s Zoom call.
“Never have I seen a presidential campaign come out with a policy agenda that specifically speaks to Black men,” Thompson said.
Trump’s plan for Black men
Trump campaign operatives have been working to capitalize on marginal gains he’s made with Black men during recent election cycles. The former president received about 19% of the Black male vote in 2020, up from about 13% in 2016, according to CNN.
An NAACP poll released in September showed 20% of Black men surveyed planned to vote for Trump in November. The same poll found 1 in 4 Black men under 50 plan to cast ballots for the former president, who held an Oct. 15 rally in Atlanta, one of several in Georgia in recent months.
Trump acknowledged his growing support among Black men during a recent campaign rally in Reno, Nevada, while arguing that undocumented immigrants are taking jobs from Black and Hispanic Americans.
“I love Black men,” Trump told the crowd. “I have gone through the roof with Black men. I don’t do quite as well with Black women, I must say. I don’t know why, but I’m sure that’ll work out, too.”
Janiyah Thomas, Black media director for the Donald J. Trump for President 2024 campaign team, says Trump and his surrogates focused their Black male voter outreach efforts by visiting inner-city communities in Georgia, including Atlanta and Valdosta, in addition to doing podcast interviews.
“We’re doing better with younger Black men,” Thomas told Capital B Atlanta on Friday. “A big part of our strategy is meeting people where they are, going to places where Republicans traditionally don’t go,” she added.
Trump’s plan for Black America is still in development, but campaign surrogates said it would be the second incarnation of his Platinum Plan, which introduced a set of policy proposals geared toward improving the lives of Black Americans across the country back in September 2020.
The original Platinum Plan was never implemented after Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden. But it called for increasing access to capital in Black communities by about $500 billion, creating 3 million new jobs for the Black community, creating 500,000 new Black-owned businesses, and increasing access to improve job and educational opportunities.
Even so, Trump’s plans for Black America exist inside the broader context of his plan for America.
The conservative authors of Project 2025 have outlined plans during a second Trump presidency to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and remove taxpayer funding for school programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Trump has repeatedly disavowed Project 2025 even though many of his former staffers helped write it.
He told Fox News last week that he would shut down the Department of Education if he’s elected.
“We’re going to take the Department of Education and close it, I’m going to close it,” Trump told Fox and Friends on Friday, in a clip that’s been circulated widely on social media.
The former president has announced or supported plans to subvert the U.S. Constitution, weaponize the U.S. Justice Department to target his political enemies, and centralize federal government power in the White House.
He also wants to give police officers “immunity from prosecution,” make it harder to vote, cut funding from schools that teach critical race theory or other “inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content.”
Most Black men still back Harris
Georgia-based political experts who specialize in Black voter engagement say they still expect the overwhelming majority of Black men to support Harris this fall, despite recent growing panic in Democratic Party circles. Black men are less likely than Black women to participate in elections at all, but they remain the Democratic Party’s second-most loyal voting bloc behind Black women.
John Taylor is co-founder of the Black Male Initiative Georgia, a nonprofit that specializes in direct engagement with Black men in the Peach State. He said his organization’s operatives have knocked on as many as 500,000 doors since January, and that 86% of people of color engaged during those encounters have expressed positive sentiments about Harris.
“I’m less concerned about the polls because what I’m seeing from voters on the ground that we talk to every day is that they understand she represents their best chance at having a positive shift in their communities,” Taylor told Capital B Atlanta.
Taylor acknowledged panic emerging among Democrats over Harris’ poll numbers, but said those who are concerned are mistakenly comparing her Black support to Obama’s in 2008 instead of Biden’s support in 2020.
“[The year] 2008 was a much different world, pre-pandemic, pre-Trump,” Taylor said. “Biden was able to pull off a win with a fairly decent, but small, margin. Kamala is really in the same place.”
Harris supporter Frank Brown, a Smyrna resident and local teacher who attended the Oct. 11 “Brothers and Brews” event in support of Harris with fellow educator James Jessup, said none of the Black men in his peer group have said they have a problem voting for a woman running for president.
“I think she has a true vision and desire to unite in ways that I don’t hear on the Republican side,” he said.
Atlanta’s Trump voters
The Trump campaign’s appeals to Black men have eroded their support for Democrats.
Last month, roughly 20 right-leaning Black men, most of whom were entrepreneurs, showed up for a focus group in Smyrna. Organized by Montgomery, the conservative political consultant, the event took place inside the home of personal injury attorney Dwight DeLoach, a Trump supporter who said he’s been a conservative most of his adult life.
The aforementioned Martin was one of the focus group attendees. He described Montgomery as a “mentor” after meeting her at Morehouse during his freshman year, and he said he’s open to voting for Trump after Montgomery arranged for him and other Black Georgians to meet the former president at his home in Mar-a-Lago over the summer.
“I don’t really necessarily agree with … all the negative media that’s going against him,” Martin said of Trump. “With Kamala Harris … I haven’t met her. I haven’t been to any events necessarily in support of her campaign. So I’m just really trying to differentiate what I’m hearing from the media and what’s the truth.”
Martin said he gets most of his news about Harris from social media sites like X and TikTok, where anti-Harris disinformation campaigns targeting Black men have been pervasive. He believes the social media-propagated myth that Harris put thousands of Black men behind bars when she was a prosecutor.
In truth, Harris was only responsible for sending “a few dozen people” to state prison for marjiuana-related offenses during her time as a San Francisco prosecutor, according to a 2019 Mercury News article that quotes Harris’ former subordinates and defense attorneys who worked with her.
It’s also true that amid the 2020 election cycle, Harris faced criticism for tough-on-crime policies, including allegedly defying U.S. Supreme Court orders to reduce overcrowding in California’s prison system.
“There was a lot of controversy about her policies when she was attorney general out in California, and allegedly, you know, being responsible for thousands of Black men being incarcerated,” Martin said, repeating a false Harris talking point that was debunked during the 2020 election cycle.
Former Gwinnett County Republican Party Chair Edward Muldrow, local U-Bar restaurant owner Ari M. Alston, and mortgage loan originator Carl Williams were among the other local Black men who participated in the focus group event in addition to DeLoach.
Some participants talked about supporting Democrats during their youth before deciding that their values were more closely aligned with the Republican Party. They maligned the idea of Black Georgians remaining loyal to the Democratic Party, blaming Democrats for many of the economic challenges facing Black Georgians.
The Black unemployment rate in Georgia has hit historic lows since Biden took office nearly four years ago, and Black entrepreneurship has soared since the pandemic.
Black Democratic leaders, including former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, have said it’s actually Republicans — who have controlled the Georgia state legislature and the governor’s mansion for most of the 21st century — who have impeded Black progress. The state’s Republican lawmakers have opposed health care reform and repealing the statewide ban on rent regulation, which some Democrats argue would help improve many Black Georgians’ quality of life.
But participants said Biden and other Democrats had done nothing for Black voters. They echoed the economic frustrations of Black Georgians about the high price of groceries and said that their money went further when Trump was in office.
“Go to Walmart, spend $50, come out of Walmart with nothing,” Williams said during the evening. “Back in the day, I used to spend $50 at Walmart and come home and just laugh, ‘Oh man, I just got over like a fat rat.’ That’s not happening [anymore]. We’re suffering from Bidenomics. It’s not working for the masses.”
Atlanta’s Anti-Harris’ progressives
Conservative Black men aren’t the only ones who have issues with Harris. Some Black male progressives who oppose the Biden administration’s position on Gaza also have soured on her recently.
Voter engagement groups, including the New Georgia Project, have stressed that the war in Gaza isn’t one of the top concerns of Black Georgians they’ve talked to across the state. Yet it remains a key issue for Black college students like Malik Poole, 23, a California native who attends school at Morehouse and recently canceled plans to register to vote in Georgia after Harris snapped at pro-Palestinian protesters who heckled her during a Detroit campaign rally in August. He refers to Gaza as “the moral litmus test of our time.”
Poole said he voted for Biden four years ago, but now opposes the president for funding what he called a “genocide” in Gaza. He said he now intends to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in his home state via absentee ballot.
Harris recently told The View she can’t think of anything she’d have done differently than Biden over the past four years, which troubled Poole. He is looking for a change agent and is no longer sure she is one.
“Biden is still continuing Trump policies we don’t like, and you’re going to continue all the Biden policies we don’t like?” Poole said on Monday. “It’s like, what’s really the point?”
