|
|
|
Why
Biden
Needs
Black
Men To
Win
By
Adam
Harris
theatlantic.com
Through
his
black
mask,
Gilchrist
tells
the
smattering
of Black
men from
the area
who have
joined
the
“Shop
Talk”
event,
the
Biden
campaign’s
series
of
conversations
focused
on Black
voters,
that all
of this
was
preventable.
Since
the
pandemic
began,
more
than
7,000
Michiganders
have
lost
their
lives to
the
coronavirus.
“Not a
single
one of
them had
to die.
Their
death
was a
policy
failure—a
policy
failure
that
started
with a
failure
in the
White
House,”
he says.
Although
Black
women
have
often
been
called
“the
backbone
of the
Democratic
Party,”
Black
men have
not been
reliably
Democratic
in such
large
numbers.
During
the 2016
election,
98
percent
of Black
women
who
voted
cast
their
ballots
for
Hillary
Clinton,
whereas
81
percent
of Black
men did.
Fourteen
percent
of Black
men
voted
for
Donald
Trump.
The
Biden
campaign
knew,
going
into the
race,
that it
would
need to
maintain
that
support
Clinton
received.
But
merely
matching
Clinton’s
numbers
would
not be
enough—it
needed
to build
upon
them.
The
campaign
recognized
that its
success
or
failure
in
energizing
Black
men
could
dictate
whether
America
had four
more
years of
the
Trump
administration.
As
millions
of
voters
have
begun
mailing
in their
ballots
and
voting
in
person,
the
Biden
campaign
is
racing
to make
its
final
pitches
to the
electorate,
including
Black
men. It
has held
virtual
conversations
with
prominent
Black
mayors,
dispatched
Magic
Johnson
to
Detroit,
and
blanketed
television
and
radio
with ads
designed
to reach
Black
men and
avoid a
repeat
of 2016.
Four
years
ago, at
a rally
an hour
and a
half
northwest
of
Detroit,
Donald
Trump
asked
what
came to
be an
infamous
question.
“You’re
living
in
poverty,
your
schools
are no
good,
you have
no jobs.
Fifty-eight
percent
of your
youth
are
unemployed,”
he said,
referring
to Black
voters.
“What
the hell
do you
have to
lose?”
He
boasted
to the
audience
in
Dimondale,
a city
that is
93
percent
white,
that
after
four
years,
he would
win 95
percent
of the
Black
vote in
the
country.
But four
years
later,
one of
every
1,000
Black
Americans
has died
during a
pandemic
that has
disproportionately
affected
them,
and the
Black
unemployment
rate is
more
than 50
percent
higher
than it
was at
the end
of the
Obama
administration.
Still,
the
Biden
campaign
is not
resting
on that
fact
alone to
get
Black
men to
turn out
in three
weeks.
A
lot of
Black
men
“were
Trump-curious
in 2016,
and they
thought
that he
was some
great
businessman
and
prosperity
would
rain
down
from his
administration,”
Representative
Cedric
Richmond
of
Louisiana,
one of
the
Biden-campaign
co-chairs,
told me
recently.
But
although
Black
voters
helped
catapult
the
Biden
campaign
in the
Democratic
primary,
several
polls
among
Black
men have
remained
consistent
with the
last
election.
In one
September
survey
of
likely
voters,
Black
women,
again,
overwhelmingly
support
the
Democratic
nominee,
former
Vice
President
Joe
Biden,
but
roughly
17
percent
of Black
men say
they
plan to
support
the
president.
Still,
Richmond
told me,
the
campaign
believes
it can
outperform
those
expectations
by
“talking
straight
to Black
men
about
the
things
they’re
concerned
about.”
The
campaign’s
strategy
is
similar
to the
one it
employed
during
the
Democratic
primary,
Trey
Baker,
the
Biden
campaign’s
national
director
for
African
American
engagement,
told me.
“The
primary
is like
a series
of local
elections,”
he said.
“It’s
like
you’re
running
for
mayor in
every
town
across
the
country.”
The
relationships
with
local
activists,
barbers,
pastors,
and
other
leaders
are
where
those
elections
are won.
Biden’s
team has
carried
the
relationships
it built
during
such
retail
campaigning
in the
primary
to its
largely
virtual
homestretch.
The
boost
Biden
received
from
Black
voters
in South
Carolina
rescued
his
primary
campaign,
and
their
support
across
the rest
of the
South
sustained
it. The
campaign
hopes
they
will
buoy him
in
November,
as well.
But the
Biden
campaign
struggled
with
young
Black
voters
during
the
primary.
(In one
February
Morning
Consult
poll, 46
percent
of Black
voters
under
the age
of 45
said
they
would
have
preferred
Senator
Bernie
Sanders.)
In
late
September,
Vince
Evans,
who
directed
Biden’s
southern
political
strategy
during
the
primary
campaign
and now
works as
Harris’s
political
director,
went
home to
Florida
and saw
firsthand
the lack
of
enthusiasm
some
young
Black
men had
for the
former
vice
president.
“He
wasn’t
sure he
was
going to
vote,
but I
eventually
got him
there,”
Evans
told me
of one
of his
cousins.
“But he
talked
about
the two
things
that
were top
of mind
for
him—and
the
other
young
men in
my
family—and
it was:
What can
we do to
once and
for all
deal
with
systemic
racism
in this
country?
And job
security.”
According
to a
July
survey
conducted
by
American
University
in
Wisconsin,
Michigan,
Pennsylvania,
North
Carolina,
Florida,
and
Georgia,
Black
Americans
under
the age
of 30
were
more
likely
to fear
police
brutality,
and less
likely
to trust
that
Democrats
would do
what is
in the
best
interest
of the
Black
community.
These
are the
voters
the
Trump
campaign,
a
Channel
4 News
investigation
in the
United
Kingdom
revealed,
tried to
deter
from
voting
in
2016—and
the ones
it hopes
will
stay
home in
this
cycle as
well.
The
margins
matter
when it
comes to
Black
support.
Some
voters
might be
encouraged
to vote
for
Biden
because
he’s not
Trump.
As the
media
obsessed
over how
Black
voters
would
swing in
2004,
one
voter
told the
Chicago
Tribune,
“I’m not
excited
about
Kerry,
but he’s
the
other
guy;
he’s the
alternative
to
Bush.”
(Kerry
won 88
percent
of Black
votes
that
year.)
Four
years
later, a
record
95
percent
of Black
voters
supported
Barack
Obama’s
historic
candidacy.
But in
2016,
Hillary
Clinton
was not
able to
hold on
to the
coalition
Obama
built.
Even so,
she
matched
Kerry’s
numbers,
earning
88
percent
of the
Black
vote. As
Theodore
R.
Johnson
wrote in
The New
York
Times
Magazine
last
month,
“an
enduring
unity at
the
ballot
box is
not
confirmation
that
Black
voters
hold the
same
views on
every
contested
issue,
but
rather
that
they
hold the
same
view on
the one
most
consequential
issue:
racial
equality.”
But will
enough
Black
voters
show up
to carry
Biden?
Though
white
college-educated
women
might be
the bloc
most
likely
to swing
this
election,
the
Biden
campaign
doesn’t
want to
take any
chances.
Back
outside
of
Headliners,
Gilchrist
made
clear
Michigan’s
responsibility
in
electing
Trump.
“This is
the
state
Trump
won by
the
slimmest
margin
of any
state:
10,704
votes. A
number
that is
seared
into my
mind for
the rest
of
eternity,”
he said.
“But I
challenge
you that
there
are
11,000
Black
men in
Michigan
that can
turn
that
around.”
On
September
29,
seven
days
after
Gilchrist
and
Harris
spoke at
the
barbershop,
Biden
and
Trump
met on
stage in
Cleveland
for the
first
Democratic
debate.
Trump
bulldozed
the
conversation.
He
talked
over the
moderator,
Chris
Wallace.
He
interrupted
Biden.
But the
steady
hum of
crosstalk
subsided
for a
moment
as
Wallace
briefly
regained
control.
“Why
should
voters
trust
you
rather
than
your
opponent
to deal
with the
race
issues
facing
this
country?”
he asked
both
candidates.
Biden
alluded
to
America’s
unfulfilled
promises—the
equality
guaranteed
by the
Constitution
that has
not been
made
available
to all
Americans.
Trump
knocked
Biden
for his
work on
the 1994
Crime
Bill,
which
has
dogged
his
candidacy,
before
pivoting
to a
muddy
response
about
his
support
among
law
enforcement.
But
Richmond—and
the
Biden
campaign—want
to
expand
the
conversation
beyond
that
question.
“There
are a
number
of
things
that
highlight
the
urgency
of this
election.
One is
the
racial
awakening.
But if
we’re
talking
about
Black
males,
that’s
nothing
new,”
Richmond
told me.
Systemic
racism
is
nothing
new when
you’ve
lived
it. “We
didn’t
need
eight
minutes
and 46
seconds
of a
police
officer
on
George
Floyd’s
neck to
know
what was
happening.”
The 41
percent
of Black
businesses
that
have
closed
as a
result
of the
pandemic,
the 60
percent
of Black
households
facing
“serious
financial
problems,”
and the
abysmal
Black
unemployment
rate
after
four
years of
the
Trump
administration
offer a
clear
divide
between
Biden
and the
president,
Richmond
argued.
“We all
know who
Donald
Trump
is. The
real
question
is who
we want
to be.”
We
want to
hear
what you
think
about
this
article.
Submit a
letter
to the
editor
or write
to
letters@theatlantic.com.
Adam
Harris
is a
staff
writer
at The
Atlantic.
|
|
|
|
|
|