WASHINGTON — While President Joe Biden was hosting a celebration of Black excellence at the White House with lawmakers, advocates and celebrities this past week, Kamala Harris was instead headed off to campaign in Pennsylvania.
The nation’s first Black vice president spoke with voters there about supporting small businesses, building more housing and expanding the child tax credit. She said the country “needs a president of the United States who works for all the American people.”
What she did not do was spend time talking about her race or gender or the prospect that she would be the nation’s first Black and South Asian woman to be president if she defeated Republican Donald Trump.
As Harris courts voters, she embodies her identity as a woman of color rather than making it an overt part of her pitch, choosing instead to emphasize her policies and resume.
She’s making her case to minority voters in a number of key settings in the coming days. On Saturday at a Washington awards dinner sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, she told the crowd that as president she would work to build a strong middle-class economy and protect freedoms including the right to vote and the right for a “woman to make decisions about her own body.”
“We have some hard work ahead of us. But hard work is good work. Hard work is joyful work,” she said. “Generations of people before us led the fight for freedom; now the baton is in our hands.”
Biden, meanwhile, speaking to the crowd just before her, talked about Harris as the first Black and South Asian woman vice president, and said “God willing, she will become the first woman president of the United States of America.”
On Tuesday, she’ll sit with members of the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. On Thursday, she’ll attend a livestream rally headlined by Oprah Winfrey and involving groups such as “Win with Black Women,” “White Women: Answer the Call” and “South Asians for Harris.” On Friday, she is scheduled to campaign in Wisconsin.
Throughout her career, Harris has been “many different firsts, and has never really led with that as a descriptor,” said Brian Brokaw, who managed Harris’ winning campaign for California attorney general in 2010.
“Her life story and her identity and her background and her job experience have all been critical parts of her campaigns,” he said. But he added that “becoming the first — that has never actually been part of her core rationale for why she should be elected (to an) office. It just happens to be an important result of her elections.”
Harris’ identity, too, is evident in how she chooses to engage with voters. A member of a historically Black sorority while attending Howard University, Harris spoke this summer in Houston at the annual assembly of another sorority, where she told the women, “It is so good to be with you this evening, and I say that as a proud member of the Divine Nine. And when I look out at everyone here, I see family.”
It’s a different approach from Hillary Clinton’s in her 2016 Democratic campaign for president, when she put front and center her potential to break the glass ceiling. Harris’ aides and allies say that with no time to lose in a compressed campaign this year, it is perhaps more valuable to focus on voters rather than herself.
North Carolina’s Crystal McLaughlin, who attended a Harris rally in Greensboro this past week, acknowledged Harris’ candidacy as an important “historical moment” but added that what is more important is to look at “who wants to do what’s right.”
Still, she said Harris’ identity matters even if it is not the focus of her campaign.
“It’s important, not only for Black young girls, but for girls period,” said McLaughlin, 53, who is Black.
So far, it’s been Trump who has brought up race in the campaign, falsely claiming that Harris belatedly “turned Black.” During the presidential debate this past week, he again said he had read she was “not Black” and then she was.
Harris did not mention herself once in her response, saying instead: “I think it’s a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people.”
POLL RESULTS
After Biden dropped out of the race in July, polling indicated that Black Americans were more excited about Harris as the Democratic nominee. In late July, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed that about 7 in 10 Black adults said they would be satisfied with Harris as the Democratic nominee. That was a marked increase from earlier in July, when about half of Black adults and 15% of Hispanic adults felt that way about Biden.
Another AP-NORC poll conducted in August found that about half of Black adults said that “excited” would describe their feelings “extremely” or “very” well if Harris was elected president.
Although Black Americans overwhelmingly identify as Democrats and about 9 in 10 Black voters supported Biden in the 2020 election, according to AP VoteCast, there are some signs that older Black voters may be more supportive of Harris than younger Black voters are. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that about 9 in 10 Black voters over age 50 were supporting Harris, compared with three-quarters of Black voters ages 18 to 49.
Civil rights organizations focused on mobilizing Black voters say they have seen an uptick in enthusiasm and engagement since Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket.
The NAACP has been circulating messaging with allied groups that its researchers believe will especially resonate with Black voters, including protecting the rights of Black Americans and appealing to their responsibility to vote.
On economic questions, the civil rights group is urging organizers and campaigns to listen to Black voters’ concerns.
“Black voters want policy solutions,” said Phaedra Jackson, vice president of unit advocacy and effectiveness at the NAACP. But she added: “Representation matters. Folks are excited to see a Black woman vying for the highest office in the land” and they care more about institutions when they are represented within those institutions.
The NAACP has focused much of its voter turnout efforts in battleground states where they believe issues like voter suppression will be huge come November.
At a packed fundraiser with a predominantly Black audience ahead of Saturday night’s black-tie gala, Harris gave a version of her standard campaign speech, placing added emphasis on the importance of fighting back against what she called a “full-on attack on the freedom to vote.”
She also called out efforts to divide Americans, “create fear” and “pit the people of our country against each other.”
Information for this article was contributed by Ayanna Alexander and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux of The Associated Press.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Phoenix Awards, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Supporters cheer as Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waves during a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
A supporter holds up a sign as Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Supporters cheer as Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Phoenix Awards, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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