Kamala Harris sees surge with Black male voters in latest polls

Vice President Kamala Harris is seeing a significant surge in support from Black male voters — a critical voting bloc — signaling good news for her presidential campaign. 

According to three new polls, younger Black men and Black men more broadly are increasingly getting behind Harris after months of polling showing a lag in their support. 

A new ABC/Ipsos poll shows that the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee is now performing better with Black men than President Joe Biden’s ABC News exit polling in 2020. Harris amassed 85% support from Black men compared to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s 11%. In 2020, Biden garnered 79% of the Black male vote, and Trump got 19%.

Vice President Harris is also outperforming Biden among all Black voters with 90% support compared to Trump’s 7%, according to the ABC/Ipsos survey. The news outlet’s 2020 exit polling saw Biden with 87% of the Black vote and Trump with 12%. 

A NAACP survey released on Monday also showed a decline in the number of Black men under 50 who are likely to vote for Trump (27-21%) and an increase in their likelihood of voting for Harris (51-59%). 

A similar upward trend of Black men backing Harris is also reflected in a recent survey released by Alliance for Black Equality, a PAC backed by data from the 2040 Strategy Group.

The Alliance for Black Equality’s latest poll shows that between Oct. 4 and Oct. 19, Harris’ support among Black Gen Z men jumped from 59% to 69%. Among Black men ages 23-29, the Democratic presidential hopeful saw an even larger uptick from 49.9% to 62.2%. And for Black men ages 18-22, Harris’ support increased from 47.7% to 52.7%.

Overall, the Alliance for Black Equality survey shows that Harris has 77% Black male support compared to Trump’s 19%. The PAC notes that if Harris can shift more undecided Black men in the final days before Election Day, she could garner more than 90% support from Black voters —the same level of support achieved by former President Barack Obama and Biden.

Despite various polls indicating that as much as a quarter of Black men under the age of 50 said they planned to vote for Trump, Dr. Alvin Tillery, the founder of Alliance of Black Equality, previously told theGrio that his polling found that Black men are persuadable into casting their ballot for Harris.

“When you tell young Black men the straight facts about Kamala Harris and who she is, they like her overwhelmingly,” said Tillery, who has polled 20,000 to 30,000 Black voters throughout the election cycle. 

Tillery said highlighting Trump’s record, including his support for a national stop-and-frisk policy, and the anti-DEI proposals from the Trump-aligned Project 2025 have been effective in bringing Black men back to the Democratic Party. 

The pollster notes that his data shows that Black men who consider voting for Trump aren’t necessarily ideologically conservative.

“They are not right wing. They’re not drifting toward Trump. They are Trump curious,” Tillery told theGrio. 

In the past few weeks, Harris has released a policy agenda directly targeting Black men that includes “forgivable” startup business loans, advancing “good-paying jobs,” and health equity initiatives. On Sunday, Harris visited a barbershop, Philly Cuts, in Philadelphia and sat down with Black men for a moderated conversation about issues of concern, including student loan debt and racial representation in education.

Dr. Tillery said Harris’ recent messaging and appeals to Black men appears to be working. He encourages the Harris-Walz campaign and surrogates to play up Harris’ record and her identity as a Black woman.

“Whether they get … information about Kamala Harris in a direct ad to them with something … featuring Black people, highlighting the VP’s Blackness, these are things that they respond to,” he said of Black male voters. “That’s the cocktail for winning this election over the [final] days.”

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