Vice President Kamala Harris appears to be losing ground to former President Donald Trump among Black men, according to recent polling. However, Democratic concerns about this shift — which is part of a long-standing trend propelled by myriad factors — may be overstated, experts said.
In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, 70% of Black men likely to vote said they would opt for Harris, while 20% said they would back Trump. In 2020, by comparison, 85% of Black men likely to vote said they planned to support President Joe Biden, marking a 15-point difference.
In recent weeks, high-ranking Democrats have moved to address this apparent weak spot with a voting bloc that has historically supported their party by wide margins.
On Oct. 14, Harris’s campaign released a policy plan targeted at Black men. It includes loans to start businesses, job training programs and a health proposal focused on diseases that “disproportionately impact Black men.”
Former President Barack Obama later highlighted the plan , writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it “will lift up Black men and their families.”
He also admonished Black men for not supporting Harris at an Oct. 10 rally in Pennsylvania, according to The Associated Press.
“Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president,” he said, according to the outlet.
Experts, on the other hand, said there are numerous factors contributing to the Democratic Party’s weakened support among Black men, but, ultimately, anxiety about this shift may be overblown.
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Why are Democrats losing support among Black men?
“This is a Democratic Party issue that Kamala Harris inherited,” Darren Davis, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, told McClatchy News.
Over the past decade, Black men — while still voting overwhelmingly for Democrats — have narrowly decreased their support . In 2016, Hillary Clinton won them by 71 points, while, in 2020, Biden won them by 69 points, according to CNN.
“The argument is that the Democratic Party has taken African American voters for granted, and it has not done enough to appeal to Black men,” Davis, who studies public opinion and racial politics, said.
The causes of the decline in support are complicated, he said, adding that he doesn’t believe misogyny is at play — as Obama suggested.
But, Davis said, “as Black women excel in education, business, and politics (which we have seen at the national, state, and local levels), there is a fear that they (Black men) are being left behind and forgotten.”
“Also, some Black men may find Trump appealing for the same reasons he resonates with white men, but this is only at the margins,” Davis said.
There are numerous reasons some Black men now favor Trump, Frank Luntz , a Republican pollster, said in an Oct. 13 CNN interview.
Speaking about a focus group of Black men who support the former president, Luntz said, “They feel victimized by the federal government, they feel like they’re attacked or even persecuted for being Black men, and they believe that Donald Trump understands their plight more than Harris does.”
“It’s not that they’re pro-Republican, because they aren’t,” Luntz said. “But Donald Trump reaches them in a personal and a human way.”
Are Democratic concerns overstated?
While acknowledging the shift in support, multiple experts — but not all — said they believe Democratic concerns about Black men are overstated.
“The polling among Black men is not too alarming,” Davis said.
Echoing this sentiment, Kenneth Nunn, an emeritus professor of law at the University of Florida, told McClatchy News, “I do think the concerns are overblown.”
Nunn, who researched race relations, pointed to a CBS News poll that found Harris is receiving the same share of support among Black voters as Biden did in 2020.
“More importantly, if we are going to break the candidate’s support down by race and gender, Black men are the second strongest base of support for Harris,” Nunn added. “Yes, they trail Black women in their support for Harris, but they surpass all other groups by a wide margin.”
“The real question is not why Harris is losing the support of Black men,” he said, “but why is she not gaining the support of these other groups, particularly white women?”
Similarly, Mark Penn, the chairman of the Harris Poll, said Black men are unlikely to come out for Trump in large numbers come Election Day.
“Are they showing strong support for (Harris) in our polls? Yes they are,” Penn said during an Oct. 15 interview with The Hill. “I think this effort on the Black vote for Trump will not really yield too much.”
The demographic that Democrats should instead be paying more attention to is Latino voters, who have traditionally had fewer ties to their party, Penn said.
“The potential for massive switching in the Latino vote … is enormous,” Penn said.
On the other hand, Carlos Figueroa, a politics professor at Ithaca College, told McClatchy News that Harris “should be worried about her numbers with African American men.”
“Harris or Trump will win this election on the margins, and African American men may provide an edge for Harris in such a tight race,” Figueroa said.
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