President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are stepping up their reelection pitch to Black voters, a key part of their 2020 winning coalition that has shown signs of fraying. They’ll launch a new Black voter outreach effort during a visit to the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Wednesday. The two will stop at Girard College, an independent boarding school in Philadelphia with a predominantly Black student body, and visit a small business to speak to members of the Black Chamber of Commerce.
Quick Read
- Biden, Harris to launch Black voter outreach effort amid signs of diminished support
- New Initiative: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are launching a new Black voter outreach effort during a visit to Pennsylvania on Wednesday, starting with stops at Girard College and a small business meeting with the Black Chamber of Commerce in Philadelphia.
- Targeted Engagement: The campaign is describing the initiative as an eight-figure, summerlong effort to engage Black student organizations, community groups, and faith centers.
- 2020 Coalition: The effort aims to reinforce support from Black voters, a crucial part of their 2020 coalition, amid signs of eroding approval. A March AP-NORC poll showed Biden’s approval among Black adults had dropped from 94% at the start of his term to 55%.
- Economic Concerns: Economic issues, particularly the impact of inflation, and Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war have been sources of discontent within the Black community.
- Swing States: Black voter turnout could be pivotal for Biden’s chances in closely contested states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
- Trump’s Counter: Former President Donald Trump has been positioning himself as a better choice for Black voters, criticizing Biden’s immigration policies and their impact on Black and Hispanic populations.
- Administration Achievements: The Biden campaign plans to highlight achievements such as the lowest Black unemployment rate in history, increased Black household wealth, student loan debt relief, and significant appointments like Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and Kamala Harris as vice president.
- Recent Engagements: The outreach effort follows Biden’s recent engagements with Black communities, including hosting plaintiffs from the 1954 Supreme Court decision on school segregation, a commencement address at Morehouse College, and a virtual address to Al Sharpton’s racial justice conference.
The Associated Press has the story:
Biden & Harris to launch Black voter outreach effort amid signs of diminished support
Newslooks- WASHINGTON (AP) —
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are stepping up their reelection pitch to Black voters, a key part of their 2020 winning coalition that has shown signs of fraying. They’ll launch a new Black voter outreach effort during a visit to the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Wednesday. The two will stop at Girard College, an independent boarding school in Philadelphia with a predominantly Black student body, and visit a small business to speak to members of the Black Chamber of Commerce.
The Philadelphia stops are the start of what the campaign is describing as an eight-figure, summerlong effort to engage Black student organizations, community groups and faith centers.
“We will continue to be aggressive, innovative, and thorough in our work to earn the support of the very voters who sent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House in 2020 and will do so again in 2024,” said Quentin Fulks, Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager.
The push comes at a moment when Biden has seen his solid support among Black voters show signs of erosion. Among Black adults, Biden’s approval has dropped from 94% when he started his term to just 55%, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll published in March.
The economy has been a particular thorn in Biden’s side since 2022, when inflation hit a 40-year high. But there have also been signs of discontent in the Black community more recently over Biden’s handling of the seven-month Israel-Hamas war.
Turning out Black voters could prove pivotal for Biden’s chances in what are expected to be among the most closely contested states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Biden beat his predecessor and 2024 challenger, former President Donald Trump, in all six states in 2020, but he could face a more difficult climb this year.
Trump, for his part, has been offering himself as a better president for Black voters than Biden. At a rally last week in the Bronx, he railed against Biden on immigration and said “the biggest negative impact” of the influx of migrants in New York is “against our Black population and our Hispanic population who are losing their jobs, losing their housing, losing everything they can lose.”
The Biden campaign says it hopes to use the new engagement effort in part to remind Black voters of some of the Democratic administration’s achievements of his term.
The Black unemployment rate sits at 5.6%, according to the latest federal government data, compared to the average of about 8% from 2016 to 2020 and 11% from 2000 to 2015. Black household wealth has surged, and Biden’s effort to cancel billions in student loan debt has disproportionately impacted Black borrowers.
Biden also points to his appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court and his pick of Harris as the first Black woman to serve as vice president.
The president’s visit to Philadelphia follows on a series of engagements with Black community members in recent weeks, including hosting plaintiffs in the 1954 Supreme Court decision that struck down institutionalized racial segregation in public schools, a commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta, and a virtual address to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s racial justice conference.
