Black voters could be pivotal in this election — here’s what they’re saying

The impact of Black voters has been heavily scrutinized in the 2024 presidential campaign.

At question is whether this voting bloc, which historically breaks overwhelmingly for Democrats, is showing signs of fracturing. Vice President Kamala Harris, seeking to make history as the first Black and Indian American woman to win the White House, could also face the highest number of defections among Black voters in decades.

POLITICO deployed reporters to five key battleground states to talk to Black voters on the eve of the election to assess their fears, concerns and hopes for the outcome in a cycle where campaigns courted their votes like never before.

Harris’ campaign says she’s exhausted every tool in her arsenal to reach them. She’s hobnobbed with Oprah, released an opportunity agenda with specifics on how her economic plan will benefit Black men and sat with podcasters, including “All the Smoke,” “Club Shay Shay” and “The Shade Room,” to reach audiences outside the traditional media echo chamber. And she deployed Barack and Michelle Obama to campaign for her.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump and his allies have also been ramping up outreach to Black voters.

“As a Black man in America, I get it. I get how some people would view it as a historic event for Kamala Harris,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), an ally of the former president, said Sunday on an X spaces event hosted by the Black Conservative Federation. “But history does not put food on your table. History does not keep our communities safe. And history does not have the United States thrive, so all of us can thrive.”

Heading into the final stretch of campaigning, polls have tightened among Black voters. A recent NAACP survey suggested that Black voter apathy may actually be more of a stumbling block for Trump, with Black men under 50 less likely to back the former president in the final month of the campaign.

“I know people in my community and family members who are undecided,” said Kiearra Vann, a first-grade teacher in Milwaukee on Friday. “It’s kind of scary at this point in the election.”

Black voters remained skeptical in Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA — Eric Holder got an earful in West Philadelphia on Friday.

The former attorney general was urging a barbershop full of mostly Black men to vote for Harris. Trump, he said, promoted the racist birther lie about Barack Obama and discriminated against Black tenants. Harris, on the other hand, was part of an administration that oversaw growth of “2.6 million jobs for Black workers” and “the lowest Black unemployment rate on record.”

But Mario Jefferies, who was standing on the side, waiting for a haircut, rattled off reasons why he wasn’t seeing that progress.

“Inflation is super high. Food is high. Everything’s high,” he said. “I don’t know what community is getting better. It’s definitely not ours.”

But Jefferies still said he’d cast a ballot for Harris because Trump returning to the White House was a non-starter: “If an alien came down right now, I’d vote for him.”

Sulaiman Hassan, a barber, remains on the fence about both candidates. In his view, Democrats weren’t talking enough about the opioid epidemic. Trump, he said, put his friend who documented the crisis in the city’s Kensington neighborhood on stage at the Republican National Convention.

But, Holder warned, “I think you gotta be careful,” dismissing Trump as “a good salesman” but not someone who will govern in a way that helps Black voters.

Another man, who declined to share his name with a reporter, walked into the barber shop while listening to Joe Rogan’s recent interview with JD Vance on his phone. He said he was voting for Trump because, as a Muslim, he opposes abortion. He also backed him in 2020.

To win Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state in the nation, Harris needs Black voters in Philadelphia to turn out in droves. But in local elections last year, turnout in the city’s majority-Black areas slipped — and polls this year have shown Trump cutting into Harris’ margins with Black men.

Compared with 2020, Black voters in Pennsylvania make up a slightly smaller share of the early vote, according to figures by the liberal data firm TargetSmart. That reflects the fact that Republicans appear to have been successful in persuading a greater percentage of their voters in white areas to turn out early this year.

Democrats argue that Republicans are simply changing how they vote — not bringing in new people. But they acknowledge they have work to do to make sure Black voters come out on Election Day in Pennsylvania.

Democratic state Sen. Vincent Hughes, who visited the barber shop on Friday, said Harris has the momentum going into Tuesday: “The deal is closing, and I think it’s closing in a strong way.”

— Holly Otterbein

Democrats are cautiously optimistic Detroit’s Black voters will come home

DETROIT — The specter of Trump returning to the White House was a motivating factor for 65-year-old Sheila White, who spoke from her driveway in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood on her way to church.

“They want us to be submissive, and they want us to go back to that time,” said White, referring to Project 2025, the controversial conservative blueprint Democrats have said Trump will implement if reelected.

Her 91-year-old mother, Ruth White, added she viewed Harris’ candidacy as a throughline of what Black Americans have fought for throughout the nation’s history, including her own family.

“My grandfather fought in the Civil War. My father marched down Woodward [Ave.] when Martin Luther King [Jr.] gave his speech,” she said referring to an early rendering of the civil rights icon’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech in the city months before the iconic address at the Washington Monument.

But Harris’ big worry is that not enough Black voters feel that way. Republicans have effectively used transgender issues to woo Black voters away from Democrats.

“I think their turn off is that the liberal Democratic Party is a lot more accepting of a lot of stuff,” said Rodney Watkins, a Navy veteran. “As a believer, I understand that,” but noted that he still voted early for Harris.

Harris needs exceptionally robust support in Detroit to win in Michigan. And so far, Democrats are cautiously optimistic there. A Democratic campaign operative told POLITICO that more than three-quarters of Detroiters who asked for mail-in ballots returned them as of Sunday.

Democratic campaign officials point to an NBC poll that suggests Harris has not only recovered from a previous lag with Black voters, but suggests returns from early voting in places like Detroit indicate Black voters returned mail-in ballots at a higher clip in the city than white voters.

Harris campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond insisted that Black voters will ultimately come around to Harris.

“The real thing we should be talking about … is the opportunity for Black men to grab their future and decide what they want it to be,” he said in East Lansing at Harris’ final rally in the state.

— Brakkton Booker

Georgia has seen a decline from 2020 in Black voters turning out early

ATLANTA — Thousands of football fans flooded downtown Atlanta on Sunday morning as the Atlanta Falcons hosted the Dallas Cowboys. Among them: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas).

“I want Texas to win this game,” Crockett joked to a parking lot full of tailgaters outside the Falcon’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. “But at the end of the day, I need Georgia to win the day on Nov. 5.”

“Send a message, number one, that Black people know who it is that has our back,” she continued. “And it’s the Black woman — yes, I said Black woman — at the top of the ticket.”

Crockett was one of the many Harris surrogates who visited Georgia in the final days of the election trying to boost turnout, particularly among Black voters. While Democrats are counting on Black voters to carry Harris in states around the country, no battleground has a higher share of Black voters than Georgia.

Early voting ended in Georgia on Friday, and the secretary of state’s office reported a record-breaking 4 million people have already cast their ballots, with the state hitting 55 percent voter turnout. Of the ballots already cast, Black voters make up about 26 percent of the vote share, slightly down from their 2020 vote share.

That could be an early warning sign for Democrats. But so far, Democratic officials here are projecting confidence, stressing that Black voter turnout is up and arguing that they expect a robust turnout on Election Day. Republican officials, for their part, say that given the inroads they’ve made with Black men in the state, Democrats have a tougher challenge this year compared with 2020.

Falcon fans piled up paper plates with mac and cheese, chicken wings, pork rib tips and baked beans as a DJ reminded them in between songs to vote on Tuesday. But the food and drinks weren’t enough to ease everyone’s anxieties.

“It’s going to be really slim. No one knows,” said Desiree Moore, 51, who voted early for Harris.

“It’s the Black men. That’s the only thing. That’s going to be the factor.”

Regina Williams, 58, said she had the same concerns.“I don’t think men want to vote for a woman, and they definitely don’t want to vote for a Black woman.”

— Lauren Egan

Some organizers see the same energy in North Carolina they saw in 2008

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina — Bishop William Barber II, sensing there is still work to be done — but precious little time to do it — stressed the importance of letting “your vote be your voice” at Union Baptist Church.

“We have to get this democracy to function, and we have to have a democracy — not just save it, but have one worth saving,” he said in an interview after his nearly hour-long sermon about motivating millions of eligible voters who sat out previous elections.

“Extremists win when voter turnout is low,” he added.

About an hour southwest, in Mecklenburg County, where roughly a third of the residents are Black, Rev. Monte Witherspoon of Steele Creek AME Zion Church in Charlotte delivered a similar message about turnout. He let on that the razor-thin election was causing him the jitters.

“I’m hopeful, but it is stressful. I had to kind of limit my consumption of national news,” Witherspoon said after Sunday service. “[Locally] it seems to be pointing in the right direction. Yeah, it may still be close, but I think I’m confident.”

J. Elvin Sadler, a senior pastor with the church, has been active in Democratic circles since Bill Clinton’s 1996 campaign and drew comparisons to the energy that surrounded Barack Obama’s election in 2008 — the last time a Democrat won the Tar Heel state in a presidential election. The key difference is that Republicans eager to send Trump back to the White House are equally, if not more, amped up this cycle.

Some voters are more skeptical of that comparison, like Janice Boyd, who’s enthusiastic about voting for Harris to be the first woman of color president but also a realist about politics.

“To me, honestly, my life isn’t going to change if I wake up and Kamala’s president. Groceries aren’t going to be cheaper. I’m not going to get a raise,” Boyd told POLITICO after Sunday service. “It’s more about respect, for me.”

She did vote for Harris, but like almost everyone interviewed, knows at least someone — friends, neighbors, family members — who is backing Trump. That wasn’t the case when Obama was running.

“We’ve been seeing the Trump 2024 signs since 2020,” Jaymond Bryant-Herron, Cabarrus County lead for Advance Carolina, an organization that focuses on outreach to Black voters. “They’ve been prepared for this race.”

— Brittany Gibson

Wisconsin’s election could come down to turnout in Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE — Barack Obama made his final campaign stop in Milwaukee on Sunday, just days after Bill Clinton stumped there, underscoring the relationship the two former presidents have with Black voters who make up nearly 40 percent of the city’s population.

The previous presidential elections in 2016 and 2020 were decided by less than a single percent in Wisconsin, ramping up pressure to turn out Black voters in Wisconsin’s largest city.

“We are literally at the crossroads of this election. We really, really are,” Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson told the 12,000 attendees at the Wisconsin State Fair Exposition Center.

Johnson, the city’s first elected Black mayor, kicked off a concert and rally on behalf of Harris with artists like GloRilla, The Isley Brothers and Cardi B, and ended his remarks with a closing message: “If Milwaukee turns out, then we win.”

The mayor has been shouldering efforts to energize Black voters, hoping renewed attention to early voting will be the key to Harris winning the state. As of Friday, he said nearly 90,000 Milwaukee residents had voted early.

Still, there are Black voters in Milwaukee who are open to supporting Trump.

Brandon Hobson, a Milwaukee construction worker, says he knows Black men who are leaning toward Trump or considering simply staying home.

“They’re skeptical about voting,” Hobson said. “They think it doesn’t matter or that things will stay the same regardless. There’s always skepticism. But it seems worse this year because of the propaganda that you see on social media.”

A 21-year-old named Trenton, who declined to give his last name, came to the Harris rally for the music.

“There’s illegal immigration … I have concerns about safety,” he said. “I’m concerned about the economy and the fact that not everyone can work at a livable wage.”

He said he already cast his vote for Trump.

— Shia Kapos