At the beginning of Kamala Harris’s swing-state tour on Thursday, former President Barack Obama delivered a scathing indictment of his White House successor Donald Trump and urged Black men to support her.
Obama stated he intended to “speak some truths” at a campaign field office to express gratitude to volunteers. He had heard reports from the ground that there was less enthusiasm for Harris’s candidacy than for his own, and that some Black males were considering abstaining from the election.
I’m talking directly to men here, but part of it makes me think that maybe you just don’t like the idea of a woman serving as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” Obama said.
The former president said Trump’s penchant for putting people down was not real strength.
Obama, the former president of the United States, made a rally in Pennsylvania, the battleground state of the 2024 presidential race, with less than four weeks until Election Day. He painted Trump as out-of-touch and not the choice to lead the country to change, calling him a “bumbling” billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. Obama praised Kamala Harris, the first woman, Black person, or person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president, and declared that she is as prepared for the job as any nominee for president has ever been.
Obama, eight years out of power, has been one of the Democratic Party’s most reliable surrogates to galvanize voters. Before being elected president in 2020, Joe Biden had also taken on that role for Democrats, but this year, since ending his reelection campaign and letting Harris ascend to the ticket, he has yet to hit the trail. Obama described Trump’s all-caps posts on social media and his “ranting and the raving about crazy conspiracy theories.” He listed some of the products Trump has tried to sell during his third White House campaign, including $399 gold sneakers, a $100,000 watch, and his “God Bless the USA” Bible for $59.99.
As the nation’s first Black president, Obama’s appearance for Harris underscores the history-making nature of her own political career. Harris, the first woman, Black person, or person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president, would be the first woman to serve as president if elected next month. His old campaign rallying cry, “Yes, We Can,” was even refashioned for the event, with “Yes, She Can” beaming on a screen over the crowd.
Both Harris and Trump have been vying for support from Black Americans. A recent poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 7 in 10 Black voters have a somewhat or very favorable view of Harris, with few differences between Black male and female voters on how they view the Democratic candidate. However, the former president believes his message on the economy, immigration, and traditional values can make inroads into the Democrats’ traditional base of support among Black voters, especially younger Black men.
Obama was among the key Democrats who were part of a behind-the-scenes effort to encourage Biden, his former vice president, to drop out of the 2024 race. He and Harris have been friends for two decades since he ran for Senate in Illinois. Pennsylvania is a state Obama won in his 2008 and 2012 presidential races, but Trump won in 2016. Biden narrowly carried it in 2020, and the state is shaping up to be one of the most closely contested in this year’s race.
(AP)
