Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks onstage during a campaign event, in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., September 29, 2024.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Harris campaign surrogates are planning a series of stops with small businesses in at least six battleground states this week, according to a preview of the announcement first obtained by CNBC on Tuesday.
Harris will not be attending these specific events herself. The campaign said “elected officials” and “community leaders” will go in her place, but did not specify who the surrogates will be.
The campaign tour, titled “Small Business for Harris-Walz,” is billed in part as an appeal to Black and Latino communities, key voter demographics that were essential to Democrats’ 2020 victory but have begun to slip in favor of Republican nominee Donald Trump this election cycle.
Trump has been working to capitalize on that momentum.
“If you’re Black or Hispanic, thank you very much, vote for Trump. You’ll be in good shape,” he said at a Georgia rally last Tuesday.
This week’s small business tour is the Harris campaign’s latest effort to quell Trump’s gains.
President Joe Biden ran a similar playbook when he was expected to be the Democratic presidential nominee before he dropped out of the race in July.
In December, for example, he touted the gains of Black-owned and Latino-owned small businesses under his administration as a way to highlight his efforts to close the racial wealth gap and to win back voters who felt nostalgic for the pre-pandemic economy that Trump oversaw.
Harris is adopting that argument for her own campaign, working to draw a similar contrast with her Republican opponent.
“Vice President Harris has proven that she will be a champion for small business,” Richard Garcia, the Harris campaign’s small business engagement director, wrote in a statement Tuesday. “Unlike Donald Trump who is only fighting for himself.”
Over the next week, the Harris campaign will extend that pitch specifically to small businesses in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The campaign plans to host a variety of organizing events, volunteer trainings and house parties.
So far, Harris has proposed giving small businesses a $50,000 tax deduction for their startup expenses, a tenfold expansion from the current $5,000 deduction. She has also floated a 28% tax on long-term capital gains, a lower rate than Biden’s 40% tax proposal in order to reward “investment in America’s innovators, founders and small businesses.”
MIAMI (AP) — Concerts and carnivals hosted at polling precincts. “Souls to the Polls” mobilizations after Sunday service. And star-studded rallies featuring Hollywood actors, business leaders, musical artists and activists.
Such seemingly disparate efforts all have a single goal: boost Black voter turnout ahead of Election Day.
How Black communities turn out in the 2024 election has been scrutinized due to the pivotal role Black voters have played in races for the White House, Congress and state legislatures across the country.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who if elected would be the second Black president, has made engaging Black voters a priority of her messaging and policy platform. Meanwhile, former president Donald Trump has sought to make inroads with Democrats’ most consistent voting bloc with unorthodox and at times controversial outreach.
A first-time voter cheers before former first lady Michelle Obama speaks, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, in College Park, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Democratic candidates, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, right, and unincorporated Miami-Dade voters dance to the sounds of the Bahamian Junkanoo band during a festive visit to the polls at the Joseph Caleb Center during the “Souls to the Polls” event on the last day of early voting Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Miami. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP)
Voters and attendees gather around for t-shirts in support of the Harris-Walz ticket at the Joseph Caleb Center during the “Souls to the Polls” event on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, the last day of early voting in Miami. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP)
A key strategy in Harris and Democrats’ Black voter outreach includes dispatching the first Black president and his wife, the former first lady, to battleground states where winning may come down to how well the Obamas convince ambivalent or apathetic voters that they must not sit this one out.
Democratic efforts have ranged from vigorous door-knocking campaigns in Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia this weekend to swing state rallies. Michelle Obama rallied voters in Norristown, Pennsylvania on Saturday alongside Grammy award-winning artist Alicia Keys while Barack Obama stumped in Milwaukee on Sunday. The former first lady also conducted her own scrupulously nonpartisan rally on Tuesday where speakers evoked the South’s Civil Rights history.
“I’m always amazed at how little so many people really understand just how profoundly elections impact our daily lives,” Michelle Obama said. “Because that’s really what your vote is, it is your chance to tell folks in power what you want.”
Efforts to boost Black voter turnout often start at the community level. In Miami, members of local churches gathered Sunday at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center and marched to a nearby early voting center as part of a Souls to the Polls event.
“It helps a lot to encourage others to vote,” said Regina Tharpe, a Miami resident. She had voted earlier, but said people “get excited when they see us walking down the street. It encourages them to get out.”
Sharina Perez, a first-time voter, brought her mother, Celina DeJesus, to vote on the last day of early voting in Florida. She said a number of issues inspired her to vote. “It was for myself, my future, my mom’s future and for the younger generation,” she said.
Organizers focused on Black communities say they are often combating exhaustion and cynicism about politics, especially among younger Black voters and Black men. But they are cautiously optimistic that their efforts will bear fruit.
“If you want the people who are going to be most impacted to come out, you have to go where they are,” said Jamarr Brown, executive director of Color of Change PAC, whose campaigns aimed at Black voters included live events in Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The group has reached more than 8 million voters in those states through text messaging and digital in the last month, he said.
”We’ve been going to those precincts and communities, those new platforms and websites where there is so often misinformation targeting our communities,” Brown said.
What to know about the 2024 Election
Other events have had a more free-flowing structure. The Detroit Pistons, for instance, hosted a “Pistonsland” festival in a majority Black neighborhood featuring musical performances from rappers including Lil Baby, carnival games, food trucks and other fanfare alongside the opportunity to cast a ballot. The nonpartisan carnival was constructed next to an early voting polling place.
Democratic candidates, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, left, and unincorporated Miami-Dade voters dance to the sounds of the Bahamian Junkanoo band during a festive visit to the polls at the Joseph Caleb Center during the “Souls to the Polls” event on the last day of early voting Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Miami. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP)
“I don’t like neither one,” said Karl Patrick, a Detroit native who attended the festival. He strongly backed Harris, however, “because Trump wants to be a dictator.” Not all of his close friends had come to the same conclusion — at least one of his friends was fervently backing the former president, he said.
Black voters are the most overwhelmingly Democratic voting demographic in the country. But the Trump campaign has made a more concerted pitch to win a greater share of Black voters this year, particularly Black men.
The Trump campaign has similarly zeroed in on economic arguments. Trump has repeatedly argued that undocumented immigrants take “Black jobs,” despite economists finding the claim unfounded. The campaign believes the former president’s broader pitch on the economy, crime and traditional values has appeal in Black communities.
“If Kamala wanted to turn our country around, then she would do it now,” said Janiyah Thomas, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign. “We deserve more than token gestures — we deserve a leader who respects us, empowers us, and backs it up with action.”
GOP Reps. Byron Donalds and Wesley Hunt have emerged as key surrogates in Trump’s outreach to Black men. The campaign hosted a Black men’s barbershop roundtable with Donalds in Philadelphia in October. The Black Conservative Federation, which hosted a gala Trump attended earlier this year, held a “closing argument” event Sunday with Donalds and Hunt.
Millions of Black voters, like many Americans, have already cast a ballot in the election, including in Georgia and North Carolina.
Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, spoke about that state’s turnout at a Tuesday brunch and bus tour launch hosted by the Black Music Action Coalition.
Miami-Dade residents wait in line to vote at the Joseph Caleb Center during the “Souls to the Polls” event on the last day of early voting Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Miami. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP)
“The truth of the matter is that Trump has been advising his people who always vote on Election Day to get out early. So they’re the ones that are making these numbers look so big. On our behalf, Black people, we have been slightly underperforming,” Johnson said.
Early Black voter turnout slightly lagged in North Carolina compared to 2020, though increased turnout at the close of early voting shrunk the gap. Whether Black voter turnout breaks records in 2020 hinges on Election Day. Many veteran Black leaders are confident the myriad strategies will bring voters out.
“Now obviously, there’s always a group of people who still don’t believe that their vote makes a difference and they lag behind,” said the Rev. Wendell Anthony, a Detroit pastor and the president of the city’s NAACP chapter. But so far, he added, “the indicators to us are such that those people are going to turn out. They’re not going to miss this this historic moment.”
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Matt Brown reported from Wilmington, Delaware. Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed.
The court won’t hear arguments until early next year and the 2024 elections are proceeding under the challenged map, which could boost Democrats’ chances of retaking the closely divided House of Representatives.
A lower court had invalidated the map, but the justices allowed it to be used in 2024 after an emergency appeal from the state and civil rights groups.
The issue in front of the justices is whether the state relied too heavily on race in drawing a second majority Black district.
The court’s order Monday is the latest step in federal court battles over Louisiana congressional districts that have lasted more than two years. Louisiana has had two congressional maps blocked by lower courts and the Supreme Court has intervened twice.
The state’s Republican-dominated legislature drew a new congressional map in 2022 to account for population shifts reflected in the 2020 Census. But the changes effectively maintained the status quo of five Republican-leaning majority white districts and one Democratic-leaning majority Black district in a state that is about one-third Black.
Noting the size of the state’s Black population, civil rights advocates challenged the map in a Baton Rouge-based federal court and won a ruling from U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick that the districts likely discriminated against Black voters.
The Supreme Court put Dick’s ruling on hold while it took up a similar case from Alabama. The justices allowed both states to use the maps in the 2022 elections even though both had been ruled likely discriminatory by federal judges.
The high court eventually affirmed the ruling from Alabama, which led to a new map and a second district that could elect a Black lawmaker. The justices returned the Louisiana case to federal court, with the expectation that new maps would be in place for the 2024 elections.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave lawmakers in Louisiana a deadline of early 2024 to draw a new map or face the possibility of a court-imposed map.
Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, had defended Louisiana’s congressional map as the state’s attorney general. Now, though, he urged lawmakers to pass a new map with another majority Black district at a special session in January. He backed a map that created a new majority Black district stretching across the state, linking parts of the Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas.
A different set of plaintiffs, a group of self-described non-African Americans, filed suit in western Louisiana, claiming that the new map was also illegal because it was driven too much by race, in violation of the Constitution. A divided panel of federal judges ruled 2-1 in April in their favor and blocked use of the new map.
The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to put that ruling on hold and allow the map to be used.
State Attorney General Liz Murrill, whose office has defended both maps enacted by lawmakers, called on the court to “provide more clear guidance to legislators and reduce judicial second-guessing after the Legislature does its job. Based upon the Supreme Court’s most recent pronouncements, we believe the map is constitutional.”
The state and civil rights groups were at odds over the first map, but are allies now.
“Federal law requires Louisiana to have a fair map that reflects the power and voice of the state’s Black communities,” Stuart Naifeh of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said in a statement. “The state recognized as much when it adopted a new map with a second majority-Black district in January. Now the Supreme Court must do the same.”
The Supreme Court vote to use the challenged map in this year’s elections was unusual in that the dissenting votes came from the three liberal justices, who have been supportive of Black voters in redistricting cases. But, in an opinion by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, they said their votes were motivated by their view that there was time for a new map to be drawn, and their disagreement with past court orders that cited the approach of an election to block lower-court rulings.
“There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out from the November election,” Jackson wrote in May.
In adopting the districts that are being used this year, Landry and his allies said the driving factor was politics, not race. The congressional map provides politically safe districts for House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, fellow Republicans. Some lawmakers have also noted that the one Republican whose district was greatly altered in the new map, Rep. Garret Graves, supported a GOP opponent of Landry in last fall’s governor’s race. Graves chose not to seek reelection under the new map.
Among the candidates in the new district is Democratic state Sen. Cleo Fields, a former congressman who is Black.
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Associated Press writer Sara Cline contributed to this report from Baton Rouge.
