Harris campaign launches effort to turn out Black churchgoers as Election Day nears

Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is launching its "Souls to the Polls" effort this weekend to turn out Black churchgoers in battleground states as Election Day approaches, a campaign official told ABC News.

With fewer than 30 days until Election Day, the campaign's multi-pronged effort will see Harris herself visit Black churches in battleground states. The get-out-the-vote program also comes with the creation of a faith advisory board, made up of 10 prominent faith leaders -- including Harris' pastor, Dr. Amos C. Brown III, who leads Third Baptist Church in San Francisco -- who will engage Black churches across the country.

In addition to Brown, the campaign said board includes faith leaders, participating in their personal capacity, from around the country, including: Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, 132nd elected and consecrated Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, 117th elected and consecrated bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III, senior pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas; and Rev. Matthew Lawrence Watley, founder and senior pastor of Kingdom Fellowship AME Church in Calverton, Maryland.

The push kicks off Sunday with a national call featuring gospel performances, faith leaders and elected officials, the campaign said.

The board said in a statement they are supporting Harris, in part, because she "is the only candidate who has always been a friend and advocate to the Black Church and faith communities across the country."

At the National Baptist Convention in 2022 in Houston, Harris, who sang in her church choir as a kid, said growing up she "learned in the Bible of the many teachings about the ever-present tension between darkness and light."

"And I learned, in those moments, how important it is to recognize the power of faith," she added.

The vice president has said she often turns toward her faith.

"In moments of uncertainty and confusion, when the way is not clear, it is faith that guides us forward -- faith in what we often cannot see yet know to be true," Harris told the African Methodist Episcopal Women's Missionary Convention last year in Orlando.

The day President Joe Biden abandoned his run for reelection in July, as Harris made more than 100 calls to work to secure support for the Democratic nomination, one of those calls was to Brown, said has said.

"I needed to talk to God, you know, and to pray," Harris said Tuesday on ABC's "The View" of making Brown one of her first calls.

Former President Donald Trump has vowed to protect religious liberties in an effort to appeal to evangelicals. The former president has also touted his Christianity.

In July, Trump spoke to a Christian conservative crowd at Turning Point Action's Believers Summit in West Palm Beach where he reiterated that the power of prayer and the grace of Almighty God saved his life in the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

"We want to thank each and every one of the believers in this room for your prayers and your incredible support. I really did appreciate it. Something was working, that we know, something was working," Trump said. "I stand before you tonight, thanks to the power of prayer and the grace of Almighty God."

The Black church has played a major role in -- and often led -- civil rights and political movements, and in fostering activism in the U.S. for generations, including the fight for voting rights and against Jim Crow.

The political influence of the church is something Harris has publicly recognized and leaned on.

At that 2023 Orlando conference, Harris called on attendees to "let us shine a light on the path forward."

"And as we do so, let us fight with optimism, with faith and with hope," she went on to say. "Because as the history of our nation and the history of this church tells us: When we fight, we win."

Harris' new "Souls to the Polls" effort comes as Black support for Democrats have softened in recent years.

A September Fox News survey found 29% of Black respondents said they would vote for Trump over Harris, a double-digit jump from the 12% who said they voted for him in the 2020 election, according to ABC News exit polling .

On Thursday, while visiting a Democratic campaign field office in Pittsburgh, former President Barack Obama said "based on reports I'm getting from campaigns and communities … we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities, as we saw when I was running," among Black voters, particularly Black men.

Obama chided Black men for making "excuses" for not voting for Harris, alleging part of it may be based in misogyny, saying it was "not acceptable."