As we enter the final 21 days of the 2024 presidential election, the euphoric sheen from the summer’s “Kamala is Brat” phenomenon, which resonated with large swaths of gen Z voters, has waned. The Harris campaign is scrambling to communicate its case for selection at the polls, with the vice-president hurriedly pushing out platforms that address lingering skepticism among various demographic groups. On Tuesday night, during a broadcast conversation with the radio host Charlamagne tha God, Harris turned her attention to Black men.
Harris’s concern is not completely unfounded – several notable Black male celebrities, such as the rapper 50 Cent and the sports personality Stephen A Smith, have expressed their receptiveness to the Trump campaign. On the aggregate, there has been a dip in support: a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely Black voters reported that 78% of all Black voters expressed an interest in voting for Harris, which would be a significantly smaller turnout than the 90% of Black people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. The most pronounced drop comes from Black men, 85% of whom turned out for the US president in the last election and just 70% of whom now say they would vote for Harris.
