Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged working to win the vote of black male voters and not to underestimate any voter, as she gave a rare, lengthy campaign interview to three journalists from the National Association of Black Journalists.
“I think it’s really important not to operate under the assumption that black men are in someone’s pocket,” the Democratic presidential candidate said today.
“Black men are like any other group of voters. You have to earn their vote, so I’m working to earn their vote, not assuming that I’m going to get it because I’m black,” she added.
Black male voters have traditionally been one of the most Democratic-leaning demographics in the country, but Republicans are trying to make inroads into them while Democrats worry about waning enthusiasm at the polls.
Harris’ interview in Philadelphia came just a month after former President and Republican nominee Donald Trump’s appearance before the same organization, which became controversial over race and other issues.
The interview with Trump opened a chapter in the campaign in which the Republican candidate has repeatedly questioned Harris’s racial identity, baselessly claiming that she “became black” at some point in her professional career.
Trump has since repeatedly questioned his Democratic rival’s racial identity on the campaign trail.
Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, has repeatedly dismissed Trump’s comments as “the same old show.”
During this month’s presidential debate against Trump, the vice president called it a “tragedy” that the former president had “tried to use race to divide the American people.”
Trump, along with his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, and other Republicans have criticized Harris for largely avoiding interviews or interacting on the record with reporters covering her campaign events.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, gave a joint interview to CNN last month. The Democratic campaign recently said she would focus more on local media, and last week she gave her first solo television interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, answering questions from a Philadelphia station.
Asked whether Americans are better off today than they were four years ago, when she and current President Joe Biden took office, Harris did not answer the question directly. Instead, she referenced the state of the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, mentioned her plans to try to lower housing costs and promoted herself as a “new generation” of leaders.
Harris argued that her candidacy offers the country an opportunity to “turn the page on an era that, unfortunately, has seen attempts by some to incite fear in order to create division in this country.” In Trump’s interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, the Republican mogul sharply criticized the moderators and drew boos from the audience.
Kamala Harris has largely avoided traditional media appearances and has instead chosen to focus on rallies, grassroots organizing and social media engagement, platforms where the vice president can avoid questions from independent journalists about her political record and proposed agenda.
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