After Kamala Harris’ defeat, black voters ask what went wrong

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Maurice Myers didn’t bother to show up to the polls.

The Pittsburgh native, who works part-time as a dishwasher at an Italian restaurant in Market Square, is involved in entrepreneurial endeavors such as his TikTok channel, which has nearly 10,000 subscribers.

Nothing in presidential elections affects his daily life, he said. 44-year-old black man leaning toward voting for vice president Kamala Harris based on concerns raised by his mother, but he felt that the Democratic candidate never tried to earn his vote.

“I didn’t vote at all,” Myers said. “I just didn’t see the need for it.”

For many black men, Republicans Donald Trump’decisive win over Harris on Tuesday landed like a punch to the gut.

An estimated 72 million Americans voted to return the former president to power, even though his record included questioning Harris’ racial background. two impeachmentsA conviction of 34 criminal offenses And violence January 6, 2021.

Trump defeated Harris, maintaining his base and expanding his margin among black and Hispanic voters is a confusing statistic for many black men trying to understand what went wrong and how they can prevent it from happening again.

Many believe that to win, candidates need to talk early on about policies and positions that matter to black voters, especially men. Then they must persuade and mobilize black communities around those issues, said Khalil Thompson, a political strategist and veteran of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

“I believe this is not a strategy that either party has pursued—not just Democrats—neither party,” said Thompson, founder and CEO of the grassroots organization Win with Black Men.

Black voters have long been the Democratic Party’s most loyal voting bloc, often leading Democrats to victory. This includes black men, who for decades have been the second largest bloc of progressive voters behind black women.

Although Trump did not win over a majority of black or Latino voters, he still made gains. He received support from about 13% of black voters nationwide and 45% of Latino voters, according to CNN exit polls. In the 2020 election, Trump won just 8% of black voters and 32% of Latinos.

For months, Trump and his allies have focused part of their strategy on excluding people of color from the Democratic coalition.

For example, the campaign relentlessly undermined black voices with grievances about the economy, illegal immigration, and culture war issues.

Trump’s team has sent high-profile surrogates to fast food restaurants, churches and hair salons in predominantly African-American communities, carrying similar messages.

“White people’s racism is not a big problem for me,” former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, whose prison sentence on corruption charges was commuted by Trump, told USA TODAY in July.

“My life is not going to change because someone white said something racist.”

Warning signs that pessimism could help Trump

Months ago, experts warned that growing pessimism among some black voters – mostly young working-class people living in urban centers – could pay dividends for the former president.

For example, a 2022 Pew Research Center poll found that 64% of Black Americans said increased attention to issues of race and racial inequality has not led to improvements in the lives of Black people.

According to a 2023 Washington Post-Ipsos poll, another 51% of black Americans said they think racism will get worse over the course of their lives.

The strategy paid off as about 3 in 10 black men under 45 backed Trump, according to AP VoteCast, nearly double what he received four years ago.

Black voters in the US reacted to Kamala Harris’s performance in the elections

USA TODAY asked Black voters across the country how they thought Kamala Harris performed among that demographic and what topics were most important.

USA TODAY

Harris, a Black Asian American, was disadvantaged by the calendar. She stayed out of the presidential race until late July, when President Joe Biden abandoned his bid for a second term amid questions about whether he could defeat Trump. She had to quickly mount a campaign just weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with the election just over three months away.

The vice president’s allies were confident her numbers would steadily improve as the election approached.

Bakari Sellers, a CNN political analyst and longtime friend of Harris, told USA TODAY in September that Harris had more than 80% of the black vote in most polls at the time. However, he said she would need to get closer to 90% to win.

According to CNN exit polls, Harris supported black voters by 86% and Latino voters by 53%. But in the 2020 election, Biden won among black voters by a larger margin of 92% to 8% than Trump and Latinos (65% to 32%).

There were other warning signs for Democrats. In Texas, for example, Trump received about one-third (34%) of the vote among black men—up nearly 20 points from four years ago. In 2020, Trump won just 15% of black men in the Lone Star State.

On Wednesday, Win With Black Men hosted an online forum with dozens of black male campaigners, strategists and community activists, where many expressed alarm about Trump’s return to power but also expressed harsh criticism of Democrats.

Ambrose Lane, president of Million Man Vote, said that while the U.S. economy was “strong” under Biden, the cost of “the things people buy every day” remained high to the point that the Harris campaign was talking about stopping price gouging.

“So Biden could very well have stopped price gouging during his term before he even handed over the reins to Kamala, but he didn’t,” he said. “And so I think those economic issues played a significant role.”

Some felt that the convergence of racism and sexism across the country was an obstacle for Harris.

This has been highlighted in part by Obama, who was criticized in October when he suggested that some black men were “not comfortable with the idea of having a woman as president.”

Preliminary exit polls show that approximately 78% of black men supported Harris, more than any other group of male voters in the country.

Many panelists on the “Winning with Black Men” panel noted that millions of Black male eligible voters in battleground states were absent from the polls this November.

Others were looking for a program that could motivate those who had not voted before the next election. The group was even asked to lobby the returning Trump administration for certain policy goals, which was a setback for some.

“Blacks who vote red are voting against their own interests,” William Mitchell, a North Carolina political activist, told the group.

“Trump has no interest in helping the black man,” Mitchell added. “He hasn’t done a damn thing for black men in his 78 years of life.”

Regarding gender divisions within the black community, many at Wednesday’s online meeting praised black women for their role in the election.

Holly Holliday, president of Sisters Lead Sisters Vote, which, among other things, conducts research on black women running for local and national office, said black men “participate in politics differently than we do.”

That “doesn’t mean they’re different from us,” she said.

Thompson, the leader of the Victory with Black Men Party, said he doesn’t blame Harris, who entered the race late and didn’t have enough time to engage with black voters the way they needed to be addressed, he said.

“There was a buzz around her candidacy,” Thompson said, “but did she have the opportunity to really start a conversation with black men as a candidate?”

The mistake, he says, was that there was a big focus on new media and interaction. with social media influencers to deliver the message. It might have been a unique approach, “but it wouldn’t have been my choice,” he said.

Thompson said he would have knocked on more doors and had more direct conversations with voters. “Texting is great because it’s a device that everyone has,” he said, but it’s not as effective as talking directly to voters.

Looking to the future, the group plans to host a series of regional conversations focused on politics, including with conservative black men who may have voted for Trump.

The goal, Thompson said, is to reach working-class black men wherever they are—whether it’s a barbershop, a pool hall or a biker community.

And to reach people like Myers who don’t vote at all.

“I continue to believe that our mission to engage black men on a granular level in how we are going to move them to make effective change in society starts now,” Thompson said.

Contributing: Erin Mansfield, Deborah Berry, Joey Garrison and Rebecca Morin