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Kamala Harris has acknowledged that she must do more to win over Black male voters, amid fears that a once reliable cohort of Democratic voters is turning to Donald Trump.
Harris said she did not assume that Black men would vote for her “because I am Black” but was “working to earn [their] vote” ahead of the November presidential election.
“I think it’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket. Black men are like any other voting group,” Harris said in an interview hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
The vice-president also stepped up her attacks on former president Donald Trump’s rhetoric, referring to his racist “birther” conspiracy about Barack Obama and recent claims about immigrants stealing and eating pets.
“This is exhausting and it’s harmful and it’s hateful and grounded in some age old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for,” Harris said.
The remarks came as both Harris and Trump campaign for votes from Black Americans.
“Kamala Harris admitted today that she has failed Black Americans,” Trump campaign media director Janiyah Thomas said in a statement after the interview.
“She told the NABJ that after three and half years of her failed policies, grocery prices are too high and the American dream is unattainable for young Americans.”
Black Americans’ enthusiasm for the election has surged since Harris became the Democratic nominee in July, but doubts remain over whether she will be able to win the support of Black men, especially in the battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina, which have significant Black populations.
One in four Black men plan to back Trump in November, according to an NAACP poll published on Friday. The latest NYT/Siena poll found that 17 per cent of all Black voters back Trump, with 9 per cent undecided.
US President Joe Biden took 92 per cent of the Black vote in 2020, according to Pew Research.
The tone of Tuesday’s conversation was a stark contrast to Trump’s contentious interview during the Black journalists’ annual convention in Chicago in July.
At that event, attendees repeatedly heckled and booed the former president as he questioned Harris’s racial identity and claimed to have been the best president for Black voters since Abraham Lincoln.
Trump said the vice-president had been “Indian all the way” but had later “became a Black person”.
However, Tuesday’s event was not as friendly as some members anticipated. Organisers had warned attendees in advance not to cheer for Harris during the conversation.
The small audience of Black journalists and college students greeted the vice-president with mild applause while some wore salmon pink and apple green, the colours of Harris’ sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha.
Moderators from news organisations NPR, Politico and theGrio repeatedly interrupted Harris and pressed for direct answers to questions on the Israel-Hamas war and gun violence.
The vice-president slammed Trump for promoting conspiracy theories about Haitian migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, saying that he “can’t have that microphone again.”
“It’s got to stop, and we’ve got to say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country”, Harris said.
Harris also told the audience that she wants to cap the cost of childcare for working families at 7 per cent of their income as she continued to focus her economic message on lowering the cost of living.
The vice-president said she had called to check on Trump after the apparent attempt on his life at the weekend, and told him there was no place for political violence in the US.
She added that she has full confidence in the Secret Service to protect her, as the agency once again comes under scrutiny for potential security lapses. “I feel safe,” she said.
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