WASHINGTON: Kamala Harris is making a major push for male voters, after an appeal by Barack Obama to Black men to drop sexist attitudes highlighted a key issue for the Democrat in next month’s US presidential election.
As polls show Donald Trump maintaining a lead among men, Harris and her campaign are appealing to them to shun the Republican’s macho “bullying” and back the vice president instead.
A New York Times/Siena survey of likely male voters earlier this week showed Republican former president Trump with a substantial lead over Harris, by 51 percent to 40 percent.
Harris rarely mentions her gender despite being America’s first female vice president, preferring to avoid making it a central issue in her campaign.
But now there are signs that she is being forced to address the issue anyway.
On Tuesday, Harris will appear at a town hall in Detroit with Charlamagne Tha God, a comedian and radio host whose show is popular with young, Black male voters.
She is also deploying running mate Tim Walz, a folksy Midwestern former football coach, in a bid to reach out to male voters with less than four weeks until election day on November 5.
Walz has appeared at football games and regularly talks about his love of hunting.
Vice Presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz meets with players on the Mankato West football team on Oct. 11, 2024 at Mankato West High School in Mankato, Minnessota. (Star Tribune via AP)
And their campaign this week launched “Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz” in a clear pitch to male voters.
The Harris campaign also said it would unleash “Big Dog Bill Clinton” to woo younger Black men in southern battleground states next week — despite his history of sex scandals.
But it was Obama’s comments to “the brothers” as he made his first appearance on the campaign trail for Harris on Thursday that made it clear that Democrats are concerned.
Republican former president Trump has long had a strong base among white men, but polls show he has recently garnered signficant support among Black men — and Hispanic men too.
A poll by the NAACP in September showed 63 percent of Black voters backed Harris over 13 percent for Trump — but while support for Harris among Black women was at 67 percent, it fell to 49 percent among Black men under 50.
While Trump has recently been stepping up his machismo-drenched pitch to young men on right-wing podcasts, Harris has also been reaching out.
Last week, she appeared on former “shock jock” turned pro-Harris radio host Howard Stern’s show where she talked about her love of Formula One.
“She should try to do better with men than she is currently doing,” Sarah Longwell, a conservative strategist and executive director of Republican Voters Against Trump, said in an interview with the Playbook Deep Dive podcast.
She pointed to figures in a recent Harvard-Harris poll showing that 18 to 29-year-old men backed Harris by 17 points while women did so 47 points for Harris, adding: “That’s a big gap.”
“It is the men. It is Hispanic men. It is Black men, which means it is part of this bigger cultural thing with men,” she said.
It’s not just Harris who is chasing voters of the opposite gender, however.
Next week, Trump will hold a town hall with women, despite his own history of sex scandals and as Democrats hammer him for his stance on abortion.
Obama blasts ‘crazy’ Trump
On Thursday, Obama lashed out at “crazy” Donald Trump and urged voters to back Harris as he brought his star power to the 2024 election campaign trail for the first time.
As he hit the stump in the must-win state of Pennsylvania, Obama also chided Black male voters for what he called hesitancy in supporting Democrat Harris because they “just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”
Obama trained his fire on Trump during a pumped-up rally in Pittsburgh, comparing the Republican’s long speeches to late Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro’s and calling the billionaire out of touch with ordinary people.
America’s first Black president admitted that “this election’s going to be tight” as many voters were still struggling with high prices.
But he told the crowd that “what I cannot understand is why anybody would think that Donald Trump will shake things up,” adding: “You think Donald Trump ever changed a diaper?’
The popular Democrat called Trump’s schemes to sell bibles as “crazy” and used the same word to describe the 78-year-old former president’s embrace of conspiracy theories.
As the crowd booed Trump, his successor in the White House, Obama added: “Don’t boo — vote.”
“Kamala is as prepared for the job as any nominee for president has ever been,” he added.
Vice president Harris’s campaign said Obama’s appearance, the first in a series in battleground states before the November 5 election, was designed to get people out to vote in crucial Pennsylvania.
Former US President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign event for US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 10, 2024. (AFP)
Obama took aim at male voters who might be attracted by the Republican’s appeals toward machismo.
“I’m sorry gentlemen, I’ve noticed this, especially with some men who seem to think Trump’s behavior, the bullying and the putting people down, is a sign of strength,” he said.
“And I am here to tell you that is not what real strength is.”
Earlier, in a surprise stop before the rally at a campaign field office in Pittsburgh, Obama made an unusually direct appeal to Black men, whose support polls show Harris has struggled to mobilize.
Saying he had some “truths” that he wanted the Black community to hear, Obama said that “you’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that.”
“Because part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”
