Whatever gains former President Donald Trump has made with Black voters appears to have been erased in the aftermath of Vice President Kamala Harris announcing her run for the Oval Office, found newly released polls from several sources.
According to Newsweek, a CNN poll of 1,631 registered voters from July 22 to July 23 indicated that Black voters who may have soured on President Joe Biden are more energized by Harris’s campaign. A whopping 78% of Black voters indicated their support for Harris, and 15% indicated support for Trump, down from previous CNN polls that saw him capture 23% of support of Black voters.
Meanwhile, an ActiVote survey conducted between July 21 and July 23 showed an even bigger margin of support for Harris. In that poll, she captured 90% of the support from Black Americans compared to just 10% for Trump.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is trying to paint these early returns as the “Harris honeymoon.” According to a memo issued by the campaign’s pollster, Tony Fabrizio, “The honeymoon will be a manifestation of the wall-to-wall coverage Harris receives from the MSM.” Fabrizio admitted that the coverage would be “largely positive” and “energize Democrats” before the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19.
Fabrizio continued in the memo, “Before long, Harris’ ‘honeymoon’ will end and voters will refocus on her role as Biden’s partner and co-pilot. The Democrats deposing one Nominee for another does NOT change voters discontent over the economy, inflation, crime, the open border, housing costs not to mention concern over two foreign wars.”
According to a New York Times/Siena College poll, Harris and Trump are effectively tied. However, the Times’s Chief Political Analyst Nate Cohn argued in his discussion of Harris’s chances at winning the White House that including a third-party candidate like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could help Harris overtake Trump’s razor-thin lead in the general election.
Summer Nesbitt, a 27-year-old Black school tutor from the Detroit-area, and a Harris supporter, told the New York Times that while Harris’s run is historic, she believes the Vice President is better served being herself than trying to sell the public what she thinks it wants.
“Her being president or even being in the running is very important just for history,” Nesbitt said before continuing, “I don’t think that you have to try to pretend to be more down or be more Black just so you can get the Black vote. Just be yourself.”
The Democratic Party has largely been coalesced by Harris’s campaign announcement, reflected by nearly 80% of Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters indicating that they would want Harris as the party nominee. This feeling was encapsulated by Michael Newman, a 59-year-old contractor living in Arlington, Texas, who is supporting Vice President Harris. “It would be a larger setback for the Democrats if they try to find someone else to try to fill in. She has a pretty good insight on the goals that Biden was working on,” Newman told the outlet.
Michael Kearney
Jr., a 41-year-old community activist from Charleston, South Carolina, perhaps has the quote that most directly addresses the concerns of Black voters about a Kamala Harris campaign as Kearney told the Times, “My fears or any concerns I have are not about her ability to campaign,” before adding that his concerns were “not about her ability to raise money, not about her ability to handle Donald Trump in a debate. My concerns are with white people.”RELATED CONTENT: Black Voters Undecided About Biden Now Willing To Hear Out Kamala Harris