A new poll shows that presidential nominees Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are tied among Black voters in battleground states like Georgia, Reuters reports.
Results from the opinion poll show that the candidates are neck-and-neck — a big switch from polls in early July 2024, where Trump was leading President Joe Biden, then the Democratic presidential nominee, by 6%. The stakes are now high to see who will come out on top in Georgia, with a higher focus on Black voters, whose population is one-third Black. However, the strategy to engage with Black voters is different from Harris compared to Trump’s.
The four-time indicted businessman has used controversially racist tactics to loop in undecided Black voters. In early August 2024, just a few weeks after the Vice President took over the campaign trail,
Trump made an appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention (NABJ), where he attacked Harris’ race, claiming he didn’t know she identified as “Black.” “I did not know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump said when asked why Black voters should trust him.His past remarks regarding Black people and support of Republican-backed voting restrictions have made it harder for Black residents to vote. On the other hand, Harris has had historic support from Black voters in the Peach State. Close to 10,000 Atlanta residents gathered to hear Harris at a rally on July 30, her largest event yet. But Vivian Childs, a National Black Americans for Trump Coalition member, claims the excitement for Harris is fading. “We have got to stop dividing our country based on how we look,” Childs said.
“I’m telling people to talk to Black people the same way they talk to white people: Look at President Trump’s resume, his policies, what he’s done for all Americans.”
According to The Guardian, a national poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College shows Trump is up one point, 48% to 47%, just days before the nominees meet face-to-face for their first presidential debate on Sept. 10 since Harris took over as the Democratic candidate. The poll also identifies Harris’ performance as a crucial moment for her campaign, allowing her to give more details on her policies.
In a statement, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris’s re-election campaign chair, said the Vice President knows her place in the race and is prepared to fight until the end. “As Vice-President Harris has said since day one, we are the underdogs in this race,” O’Malley Dillon said.
“We have a lot of work to do to make sure we win this November, and that will require us to continue aggressively raising money.”
In Georgia, the eyes of Black voters in different counties are focused on an array of topics, ranging from student loan forgiveness to immigration to inflation. In Cobb County, the change from Harris’ campaign is apparent. Once a predominantly white and Republican county, the demographics show 30% Black, 14% Hispanic, and 6% Asian. It is also highlighted as a key county that helped President Joe Biden secure the White House in 2020. “It’s a reflection in the mirror for a lot of us,” said Cobb County Democratic Chair Essence Johnson.
But there are a
few Black constituents in the county still supporting Trump’s conservative viewpoints. Embassy Church Senior Pastor B. Dwayne Hardin feels America is heading toward the idea of socialism and doesn’t want Black people to just vote for the candidate that “looks like them.”“Do not worship the idol of skin color,” he told his congregation.
While Hardin hasn’t told people who to vote for, he labels Trump as being on the right side of issues such as individual liberty, school choice, and economic empowerment.
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