Trump’s inroads with Black voters test Harris in North Carolina

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Todd Buchanan hangs a leaflet on the doorknob of a modest brick house, knocks lightly, and steps back. An older Black woman in a flowered blouse opens the door, a smiling toddler at her feet, and Mr. Buchanan explains that he’s come to remind her to vote in November’s election.

“I always vote,” Deborah Huntley assures him, adding that she’s been urging her sister and daughter, whose toddler she’s watching, to go to the polls as well. “They say it don’t make a difference, but I do it anyway.”

A retired caregiver, Ms. Huntley belongs to a generation that remembers being denied the vote in states like North Carolina and, since then, has overwhelmingly supported Democrats up and down the ballot. Mr. Buchanan, the canvasser, belongs to a younger generation of Black Americans that has grown less tethered to the Democratic Party and to voting overall.

Why We Wrote This

Donald Trump is making gains with Black voters, especially men, while Kamala Harris is gaining with white voters, particularly women. Driving the shifts are issues like the economy and abortion, plus a larger partisan realignment around education.

With just weeks to go before Election Day, North Carolina offers a window into a murky but potentially significant shift taking place among voters of color. Former President Donald Trump, whose rhetoric and policies Democrats have long lambasted as racist, is polling higher among Black voters, particularly men, than any Republican nominee in decades. Some surveys have shown him winning as much as 15% or more of the Black vote across the United States – the highest share for a GOP presidential candidate in 60 years. Even if that proves vastly inflated, and other surveys suggest it is, Mr. Trump seems likely to improve on his 2020 performance, in which he won 7% of Black voters.

Vice President Kamala Harris, a Black and Asian woman who would be the nation’s first female president, is trying to shore up Black support in states like North Carolina and Georgia, where she will need a robust turnout to win. At the same time, polls suggest she’s notched some gains with white voters, especially women and those with college degrees, who have continued to move away from Mr. Trump. How this racial sorting plays out may determine whether the Tar Heel State – where 1 in 5 eligible voters is Black, and more than one-third of voters hold college degrees – remains in the Republican column or goes blue for the first time since Barack Obama won here in 2008.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

Supporters stand before former President Donald Trump as he speaks at a campaign rally at Minges Coliseum, Oct. 21, 2024, in Greenville, North Carolina.

Republicans say Mr. Trump’s economic message has found a receptive audience among Black and Latino men who are unhappy about the high cost of living. Many also seem to like the former president’s pugilistic style. The Trump campaign has leaned into hypermasculine branding, which has targeted young Black and Hispanic voters and the media they consume.

“They get it. They’re coming our way,” says Lorena Castillo-Ritz, the GOP chair in Mecklenburg County. “They’re not better off under this government.”

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