Can Kamala Harris help Democrats regain lost Black votes?

Barely a week after President Joe Biden dropped out of the United States presidential race, his deputy Kamala Harris emerged as his replacement atop the Democratic Party ticket.

Just this week, she was confirmed as the official Democratic Party nominee, following a string of key endorsements, including from former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Harris, a 59-year-old former California prosecutor, could potentially become the first woman — and the first African American-Indian candidate — to make it to the White House.

But experts wonder whether Harris will be able to reverse a troubling trend for Democrats.

Recent opinion polls suggested that Biden had been losing the support of Black voters before his withdrawal from the race. And their support had proven crucial in his 2020 election victory.

That year, 87 percent of Black voters opted to support Biden. But in May, a Pew Research poll of Black voters found that only 77 percent indicated that they would choose Biden over Republican nominee Donald Trump for president in this year’s elections.

So, can Harris turn this downward trend around before the November election?

What is the history of Black voter support for the Democratic Party?

From the mid-20th century onwards, support for the Democrats has traditionally been high among Black voters, reaching a peak of 95 percent during Barack Obama’s election in 2008, according to exit polls.

The Great Depression in the 1930s is often cited as a turning point. As poverty rose, many voting demographics started to turn against President Herbert Hoover, a Republican.

His successor, Democrat Franklin D Roosevelt, offered an alternative. Roosevelt first won the presidency in 1932 and served a historic four terms in office.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies has compiled data from that time period about Black voting trends. While there is no data for 1932, the centre found that Roosevelt gained 71 percent of the Black vote in 1936.

Black communities strongly supported Roosevelt’s New Deal programmes, which attempted to reduce inequality in the wake of the Great Depression.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA), Public Works Administration (PWA) and other programmes provided jobs for millions of Americans, including African Americans. Employment rates rose, though critics point out that rampant discrimination limited how effective the New Deal programmes were for Black communities.

Furthermore, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was also an advocate for civil rights, helping to cement Black support for Roosevelt.

Still, a sizable segment of the Black population continued to support the Republican Party. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies estimates that, until 1964, one in four identified as Republican.

But the fight for civil rights was heating up in the US, and that too shifted the political dynamics.

Roosevelt’s successor, Democrat Harry Truman, made the decision to integrate the military in 1948, and white segregationists like South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond responded by switching parties, joining the Republicans.

Later Democratic presidents, like John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, would make civil rights a centrepiece of their campaigns, drawing significant Black support in the 1960s. The signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for instance, marks a leap in Black identification with the Democratic Party.

Aren’t the Republicans the party of Lincoln, though?

Yes, the Republican Party does identify with the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican president who saw the US through its civil war.

In 1870, under Lincoln, the US passed the 15th Amendment, granting the right to vote to all male citizens, regardless of race.

But afterwards, the ability to vote was hindered by Jim Crow laws that imposed discriminatory standards on Black people seeking to cast a ballot.

It was Johnson, a Democrat, who enforced voting rights by addressing racial discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

How has Black support for Democrats fluctuated over the decades?

In the 1964 presidential election, Johnson received 94 percent of the Black vote due to his strong advocacy of civil rights legislation.

Black voter support for the Democrats fell to 83 percent in the 1992 election, when Democratic Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton beat incumbent Republican George HW Bush for the presidency.

Black support for the Democrats went up to 87 percent in 2020. But some Black voters have been gravitating away from the party with support coming down to just 77 percent, according to the latest polls.

How many Black people are likely to vote Trump?

In May’s Pew Research poll, 18 percent of Black registered voters said they were leaning towards a vote for Trump.

That represents a 50 percent increase from the 12 percent of Black votes Trump received in the 2020 election.

Since that poll was published, however, Biden has withdrawn from the race. Still, Harris’s ascension as the Democratic nominee has not been a silver bullet to rally Black votes.

According to a recent survey from the New York Times and Siena College, conducted from July 22 to July 24, an estimated 19 percent of Black voters said they would support Trump.

Approximately 72 percent, meanwhile, said they supported Harris.

Compare that to an earlier New York Times/Siena College survey on July 2. Among registered Black voters, 73 percent supported Biden, and 15 percent backed Trump.

Polls of voters overall, regardless of race, show a neck-and-neck race between Trump and Harris.

Can Kamala Harris reverse the downward trend?

A steady stream of donations suggests Harris has brought back a bit of enthusiasm to the Democratic Party, especially in the Black voting bloc.

Last month, Win With Black Women, a network of Black women leaders, organised a Zoom call to support Harris. Nearly 44,000 people, mostly women, joined the call, and the group was able to raise more than $1.5m in under three hours.

That same week, more than 53,000 Black men participated in the Win With Black Men virtual conference, showing their support for Harris. The organisers announced that it successfully raised more than $1.3m in four hours.

According to the Harris campaign, the Democratic candidate has brought in $200m during the first week of her presidential campaign, with 66 percent of all donations coming from first-time donors. Harris raised a total of $310m in the month of July.

Which Black leaders have endorsed Kamala Harris?

Representative Jim Clyburn, one of the most prominent Black leaders in the Democratic Party, has endorsed Harris.

Clyburn has played a pivotal role in endorsing presidential candidates in the past. For instance, in 2008 when he was House majority whip, Clyburn backed Obama in his successful campaign for the White House.

Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden before the South Carolina Democratic primary in 2020 is widely credited for revitalising Biden’s campaign, leading to a decisive victory.

Biden ultimately secured the Democratic nomination that year and won the presidency.

At the time, Clyburn cited Biden’s choice of Harris as his running mate as one of the main reasons he endorsed him.

“One of President Biden’s first decisions as the nominee was to select a running mate that he believed possessed the values and vision necessary to continue this country’s pursuit toward a ‘more perfect Union.’ I echo the good judgment he demonstrated in selecting Vice President Harris to lead this nation alongside him, and I am proud to follow his lead in support of her candidacy to succeed him as the Democratic Party’s 2024 nominee for President,” Clyburn said in a statement.

In 2024, after launching her own presidential bid, Harris managed to secure the support of Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr, marking the first time King has made a political endorsement publicly.

The Congressional Black Caucus, comprised of more than 60 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, also endorsed Harris on July 22.

On July 21, Letitia James — the first Black person to preside as New York attorney general — likewise announced that she would lead “a coalition of every Black AG in the nation” to endorse Harris.

Joining James in her coalition were attorneys general from swing states like Nevada and Minnesota.

What challenges might Kamala Harris face?

According to experts, Harris might inherit some of the criticisms Biden faced, as his current vice president.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll — released on July 25, after Biden withdrew from the race — showed strong disapproval for the outgoing president.

Approximately 57 percent of the registered voters polled said they disapproved of his performance. A majority also showed greater confidence in Trump’s ability to handle the economy: An estimated 43 percent approved of Trump’s economic performance, as opposed to 37 percent support for Biden.

Experts say Harris will have to contend with those criticisms about the economy, particularly after a rise in inflation. Recent reports, however, show that inflation has slowed in recent months.

Immigration has also been a sore spot for the Biden administration, due to record-high border crossings in 2023. But data for the five most recent months — from February to June — has shown a gradual decline.

Since Harris announced her candidacy for president in July, Republicans have attacked her record as “border czar” — though she herself was never in charge of border security. That falls instead to figures like Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security.

What are the criticisms raised about Harris’s past?

Some voters have questioned how Harris will respond to calls for reparations, proposed as a way to make amends for the centuries of discrimination and slavery Black people have endured in the US.

In an interview with The Root, a news publication that primarily caters to Black audiences, Harris addressed her stance on reparations.

“I think there has to be some form of reparations and we could discuss what that is, but look, we’re looking at more than 200 years of slavery,” Harris said.

However, in a 2019 interview with TheGrio, Harris stated: “I’m not gonna sit here and say I’m going to do something that’s only going to benefit Black people. No. Because whatever benefits that Black family will benefit that community and society as a whole and the country, right?”

Some critics have also highlighted Harris’s record as district attorney of San Francisco and California’s attorney general. She spent seven years in each role, and some question her commitment to criminal justice reform.

In 2011, for instance, Harris pushed for a controversial anti-truancy law that would allow parents to be charged with a misdemeanour in California is their child was absent from school too often without a valid excuse.

Other critics, like former US Representative Tulsi Gabbard, have slammed Harris for rejecting attempts to allow advanced DNA testing in the case of a Black man on death row. They say such examples chip away at Harris’s claims to have been a “progressive” prosecutor.

However, her supporters have lauded efforts like Back on Track, a 2005 programme to help young people arrested on non-violent drug offences get job training and substance abuse assistance.

In an interview with The Guardian, Insha Rahman, director of Vera Action, an organisation advocating against mass incarceration, offered her assessment of Harris’s criminal justice record.

“The longstanding version of Kamala Harris proudly owned the role of being ‘top cop’ and generally shied away from taking progressive stances on criminal justice reform. She played it safe and down the middle,” Rahman said.