When asked whether they intend to vote for Kamala Harris in November, all in attendance during an Atlanta focus group for Black male Georgians on Wednesday raised their hands, signaling “Yes.”
“I don’t really have a choice,” said 74-year-old James Jackson, who voiced concerns about former President Donald Trump becoming a dictator and putting Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s now-notorious conservative playbook for a second Trump presidency, into action if he scores a second White House win.
“I’m voting for a person I believe is going to lead this country and at least give us an opportunity to readjust and move this democracy forward,” Jackson continued.
“Anything’s better than Trump,” added 49-year-old Frank Asante.
Jackson and Asante were two of the seven Black men who signed up online to participate in a Black men’s focus group at the Slate Room in Atlanta’s Morningside-Lenox Park neighborhood last week. Former CBS-46 news anchor Sharon Reed moderated the event, which political strategist Leo Smith organized to gauge how local Black men feel about the presidential election with Harris atop the Democratic ticket. Most of the men who signed up indicated they either were unsure or were less enthusiastic about voting for Biden, according to Smith.
The importance of Black men for Harris
Black men have become a major focus for political operatives and observers as the Democratic National Convention ramps up this week, especially in battleground states like Georgia, where Black people make up about a third of the population.
Recent polling and historic data suggest Black men’s turnout rates and support, or lack thereof, could make or break the Harris campaign in November. It’s why the political action committee known as Black Men Vote is spending about $4 million on ads aimed at boosting Black male turnout in multiple battleground states, according to Politico.
Historically, Black men are about six percentage points less likely to participate in elections than Black women, according to Pew Research. In 2008 and 2012, however, a surge in overall Black turnout helped former President Barack Obama score decisive victories over John McCain and Mitt Romney, respectively. Hillary Clinton didn’t receive the same level of Black male support in her 2016 loss to Trump. And Trump received higher levels of Black men’s support in 2020 than he did four years earlier.
Harris will likely need a higher level of election participation from Black men in November if she hopes to make history. Polls show the race for president is a toss-up in Georgia now that Harris has replaced Biden.
Biden largely failed to energize less frequent Black voters, including some Black men, this year before dropping out. Historically, some Black men have been reluctant to support Black women politically — a narrative that dates back to Shirley Chisholm’s pioneering 1972 presidential campaign and persisted 50 years later in Stacey Abrams’ 2022 run for Georgia governor.
Yet several focus group participants said on Wednesday that they felt more comfortable supporting Harris than the current president, with few qualms about her gender or mixed-race heritage.
Their enthusiasm echoed that of the estimated 45,000 Black men who raised more than $1 million for the Harris campaign during a July 22 livestream launched the day after she announced her candidacy.
“I definitely want America to be able to get over that barrier,” Asante, a local IT professional and naturalized citizen originally from Ghana, said about electing a female president.
“We’ve gone past the Black part,” Asante added in reference to Obama. “Let’s get the woman part out of the way.”
What about Black men for Trump?
Despite reports of growing Black male support for Trump, all the panelists expressed strong disapproval for the former president. A Pew Research study released in May found 20% of Black men would vote for Trump if the election were held at that time.
Focus group participant Lamont “Monte” Evans, 55, said he voted for Trump in 2016 because he thought the famous real estate mogul and star of “The Apprentice” reality TV show would do more to help minority business owners like him. It’s a decision Evans said he now regrets.
“Donald Trump unearthed a level of racism in this country … that I have never seen,” Evans said.
Human resources professional Mark Todd, 34, said he intends to support Harris, but he wants to see her do more than rely on her racial identity to attract Black votes.
“You don’t want that to be your platform — that you’re running on just being a Black person,” Todd said. “[We] also want to understand, as Black people, that [being Black is] something that’s core to you and not just a story that you’re telling about your youth.”
The views expressed during the focus group align with those expressed by Black men throughout Georgia, according to John Taylor, co-founder of the Black Male Initiative Georgia, a nonprofit that does voter engagement work throughout the state and specializes in direct engagement for Black men.
Taylor estimates that staffers in his organization have had more than 150,000 Black men in Georgia since January. He said recent door-to-door voter engagement outings have shown a higher level of support for Harris among Black men than Biden received previously.
“She’s not boring,” Taylor said of Harris. “It brings the entire debate around the election cycle a little bit more energy, a little bit more life.”
Taylor also took exception to the idea Black men will be to blame if Harris doesn’t win in November. He pointed out Black men are the second-most loyal demographic voting bloc for Democrats, behind Black women.
Men across racial lines are more likely to vote Republican than women. And Black men have been voting Republican at slightly higher rates since Obama left office.
Yet, according to CNN, 19% of Black men voted for Trump in 2020, up from 13% in 2016. That’s far less than the 61% of white men and 55% of white women who did the same.
Taylor said the Democratic Party needs to do as much outreach to Black men as it does to Black women if it wants them to vote at the same rate and with the same degree of loyalty.
“If you don’t spend the resources to target our population with a message that actually matters to us, then we’re probably not going to turn out to vote,” he said.
