Warnock remains optimistic about the Black male vote

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said Sunday he does not believe that Black men are going to vote for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in “any significant numbers.”

“There will be some. We are not a monolith,” he told host Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But as black folk in general and black men in particular consider who Donald Trump is … as they watch him deal with his own criminal problems and concerns — that the criminal justice system certainly doesn't handle them the way it handles him.”

A New York Times study released Saturday showed Harris polling almost 10 points behind how President Joe Biden fared with Black voters in 2020. It also found that one in five Black men say they support Trump.

Last week, former President Barack Obama urged these men to reconsider while campaigning for Harris .

“You have someone who has consistently shown disregard not just for the communities, but for you as a person. And you're thinking about sitting out?” Obama said. “Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president. And you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

Warnock specifically referenced Trump’s treatment of the Central Park Five , a group of five Black teenagers who were wrongly convicted of rape in 1989. Even before they were convicted, Trump called for them to receive the death penalty and said they should still be in prison even after all were exonerated.

“On the other hand, you have got Kamala Harris, who in her work as a prosecutor, found ways to give people a path towards a better life, who has spent her whole life as a lawyer, as a senator, and now as vice president centering the concerns of ordinary people,” Warnock said. “Again, we're not a monolith, but this idea that large numbers of black men are going to vote for Donald Trump, it's not going to happen.”

While Warnock expressed his respect for Obama’s message, he emphasized the importance of speaking to the broader group, not just the 20%.

“We have got to talk to everybody, because our coalition is broad. But at the end of the day, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are doing the work that every candidate has to do. You have got to earn people's vote,” he said, referencing specific programs that would eliminate student debt and invest in HBCUs.

Other Democrats had a different response to Obama. As Bash pointed out to Warnock, actor and activist Wendell Pierce posted on X , “Awful message. The party has to stop scapegoating Black men. Black men aren’t the problem. White men and White women are. … Black men voting for Trump is insignificant. This accusatorial tone will make some Black men stay home-which is worse.”

On Sunday, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) responded to Obama’s suggestion that sexism was playing a role in the Black male vote during his appearance on “State of the Union.”

“Let's compare what women have done in European countries. I just think that our women here in the United States of America are just as strong, just as energetic, just as smart as any woman on Earth. And so, when that comes up, I just take people to experience — to me, history is instructive,” Clyburn said.

Clyburn is, admittedly, not as confident as Warnock about the Black male vote. He told Bash that he is concerned about Black men staying home or voting for Trump, though he is trying to combat it.

“Yes, I am concerned about the Black men staying home or voting for Trump,” Clyburn said when she asked about the topic.

“When people raise questions [like] what does [Harris] stand for, I tend to ask them, ‘Don't tell me what you hear. Tell me what you feel. What do you feel about her, as opposed to what you experienced for four years under Trump?’” Clyburn said. “And I have yet to find one single person that can tell me one thing that they got out of the Trump administration, except, as a few of them said to me, well, we got a stimulus check.”

He compared Project 2025 to “Jim Crow 2.0,” and emphasized again the need to put facts in historical context.

“You have to explain to young men that [historical] understanding and then trying to take them to where you think they ought to be as we look to the future,” he said.