Black Men Vote PAC ramps up investment in turnout for Harris

Democrats are worried not enough Black voters will turn out in crucial swing states, and they are putting more firepower into the effort to get out the vote.

Black Men Vote PAC is spending $4 million to target Black men in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania with one message: Show up and vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. The announcement, shared first with POLITICO, said the group plans to spend heavily on social media and build out a robust canvassing operation in the majority Black districts. The targeting efforts will include radio spots and hiring door knockers to promote Harris’ record and achievements.

The focus is a sign that Democrats know those states, which often have razor-thin margins, can ultimately decide the election. Some post-election analysis of swing states in 2016 pointed to the failures of Democrats to turn out Black voters may have cost them the election. Though Black voters overall tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic, some polls have shown softening support among Black men this cycle.

“Black men can be the difference between winning and losing," said Frank White, the co-founder and board chair of Black Men Vote PAC. White is a longtime Democratic donor who has donated six figures to the Democrats, including to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and backed Harris during her presidential primary run in 2020.

The PAC and its nonpartisan civic organization counterpart have been working to engage Black men in Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. The group said these men have grown disillusioned about the electoral process and apathetic that voting will have a positive impact on their lives.

Black Men Vote has already spent more than $6 million on the civic engagement this cycle alone according to officials, including on a pilot program that trains barbers to serve as voting ambassadors and encourage their patrons to register. Organizers set an overall goal of registering 100,000 voters, with a focus on Black men in the three battleground states ahead of the election. The group said the effort is roughly 80 percent complete.

Organizers hope to capitalize on the exhilaration surrounding Harris since she ascended to the top of the ticket. “Kamala is a better investment,” White said, noting that the group's efforts were stagnating when Biden was the nominee.

The PAC also commissioned a survey, conducted by HIT Strategies, of 500 registered Black voters in states that Democrats need to hold to win in November. The poll, which was conducted at the beginning of August, found that 69 percent of Black men registered to vote have a favorable opinion of Harris. It also found 66 percent of Black men plan to support Harris, compared to 17 percent who back former President Donald Trump. When Black women were factored in, Trump notched just 10 percent support among Black voters.

“We literally have numbers in this poll — 54 percent of these Black voters — saying that her getting the nomination actually makes them more motivated to come out and vote,” in the fall, said Joshua Doss, a researcher and the director of the Economics and Black Voters department at HIT Strategies.

Throughout this cycle, Trump has made overtures to woo Black voters, including playing up his role in passing the First Step Act, his signature 2018 law making changes to the criminal justice system, while attacking Harris’ record on crime during time as California’s Attorney General and San Francisco’s district attorney.

“I seem to be doing very well with Black males,’’ Trump quipped at Mar-a-Lago during a news conference earlier this month. But the poll the PAC commissioned found that more than 8 in 10 Black men (84 percent) in the selected battleground states trusted Harris more than Trump on criminal justice reform.

“That’s a winning issue for her,” said Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, an organization that mobilizes Black voters across the country.

“I think the more that the young brothas start hearing the difference between her and what Trump is talking about … the more that conversation happens, she’s going to continue to pick up more and more support.” said Albright, whose group was unaffiliated with the PAC investment and the survey, suggested that Harris could use her former role as a prosecutor to her advantage.

Earlier this month, the Harris campaign hired HIT Strategies. In an email, founding partner Roshni Nedungadi said no employee who worked on the survey for Black Men Vote PAC had any contact with those assigned to the campaign, adding “this poll is fully firewalled off.”