Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, in a Monday interview with The Shade Room, downplayed polls that suggest Donald Trump is making inroads among Black male voters:
“You're seeing, you know, in the polls and you're seeing Black men aren't as ‘excited or fired up’ for you. How do you respond to that?” host Justin Carter asked the vice president.
“One, that's not my experience. Two, Election Day has not arrived yet,” Harris responded. “And the third point is … when journalists ask me this question, I often will say to them that let's be clear that your underlying premise is not an assumption that I'm supposed to have Black men in my back pocket in terms of their vote. And that I should be, I should be taking that for granted because I don't. Black men are no different from anybody else. They expect that you have to earn their vote.”
“It is incumbent on me to earn the support,” she added.
Recent polls found that while Harris is still well ahead of Trump among Black voters and she has improved from President Joe Biden’s standing when he left the race, the GOP nominee is faring much better than expected. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll of Black likely voters found Harris leading Trump 78% to 15% among Black voters — up from Biden’s 74% earlier this year, but down from Biden’s 90% clip in 2020.
