Biden, Harris to launch Black voter outreach effort amid signs of diminished support

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are stepping up their reelection pitch to Black voters, a key part of their winning 2020 coalition that has shown signs of fraying.

They will launch a new black voter outreach effort during a visit to the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Wednesday. The two will stop at Girard College, an independent boarding school in Philadelphia with a predominantly black student body, and visit a small business to speak with members of the Black Chamber of Commerce.

The Philadelphia stops are the start of what the campaign describes as an eight-figure, summer-long effort to engage black student organizations, community groups and faith centers.

“We will continue to be aggressive, innovative and thorough in our work to win the support of the same voters who sent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House in 2020 and will do so again in 2024,” said Quentin Fulks, Biden’s vice president. principal deputy campaign manager.

The pressure comes at a time when Biden sees his solid support among black voters showing signs of erosion. Among black adults, Biden’s approval rating has fallen from 94% when he began his term to just 55%, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll published in March.

The economy has been a thorn in Biden’s side since 2022, when inflation hit a 40-year high. But there have also been signs of discontent in the black community, most recently over Biden’s handling of the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas.

Black voter turnout could be key to Biden’s chances in what is expected to be among the most hotly contested states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Biden beat his predecessor and 2024 challenger, former President Donald Trump, in all six states in 2020, but could face a tougher climb this year.

Trump, in turn, has presented himself as a better president to black voters than Biden. At a rally last week in the Bronx, he criticized Biden on immigration and said that “the biggest negative impact” of the influx of migrants in New York is “against our black population and our Hispanic population who are losing their jobs, the lose their homes.” , losing everything they can lose.”

The Biden campaign says it hopes to use the new engagement effort in part to remind Black voters of some of the Democratic administration’s achievements during its time in office.

The black unemployment rate is 5.6%, according to the most recent data from the federal government, compared to averages of about 8% from 2016 to 2020 and 11% from 2000 to 2015. Household wealth Black debt has increased, and Biden’s effort to cancel billions in student loan debt has disproportionately impacted Black borrowers.

Biden also points to the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court and the selection of Harris as the first Black woman to serve as vice president.

The president’s visit to Philadelphia follows a series of engagements with members of the black community in recent weeks, including hosting plaintiffs in the 1954 Supreme Court decision that struck down institutionalized racial segregation in public schools, a commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta and a virtual speech event at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s racial justice conference.