DETROIT (AP) — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both pushed Tuesday to energize key constituencies that their allies fear are slipping away, with the vice president looking to reach black men and the former president focusing on women.
Harris will appear at a town hall-style event in Detroit hosted by the morning radio program “The Breakfast Club,” featuring Charlamagne Tha God, who is especially popular among black men. Trump, meanwhile, will tape a Fox News Channel town hall with an all-female audience and moderated by host Harris Faulkner.
The vice president was also scheduled to visit a black-owned business in Detroit. A day earlier, she visited LegendErie, a coffee shop and record store in Erie, Pennsylvania, where she met the couple’s owners, a local pastor and other community leaders.
Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, unveils his ticket’s plan to improve the lives of rural Americans. It’s yet another sign that in a razor-thin race, each party is trying to narrow the other’s margins of support with different voting blocs while bolstering traditional strengths.
The vice president’s appearance at the “Breakfast Club” comes a day after she announced a series of new proposals called the “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men.” The ideas are intended to provide more economic benefits to the demographic, including providing forgivable business loans of up to $20,000 to entrepreneurs and creating more apprenticeships. The plan would also support the study of sickle cell disease and other diseases that are more common in black men.
The focus on black men became even sharper last week when former President Barack Obama campaigned for Harris in Pittsburgh and said he wanted to speak “some truths” to black male voters, suggesting that some “just don’t have the idea of having a to have a woman as president.” ”
The vice president’s campaign says it does not believe black men will support Trump in large numbers, especially after strongly backing Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, with Harris as his running mate. They’re more concerned about a measurable percentage of black men. choosing not to vote at all.
Likewise, Trump thinks he will do well with rural voters, but Team Harris hopes to at least keep things closer. And while Harris’ support among women is strong, Trump is trying to stop her from raising the score.
Harris’ campaign has also placed a special emphasis on other male voters, including the creation of “Hombres con Harris” or “Men with Harris,” a group that uses celebrities and key elected officials to organize events on her behalf designed to promote Latinx to appeal to American men. .
As she campaigns in Detroit, Harris faces other potential challenges in Michigan, including Arab activists angry about the Biden administration’s outright support for Israel in the war with Hamas in Gaza. Dearborn, outside of Detroit, is the largest Arab-majority city in the US
Still, the vice president’s campaign expects strong support from white, college-educated voters in Michigan on Election Day at rates that could surpass Biden’s in 2020, and it hopes to widen the margin by which Trump sweeps many of the nation’s key suburbs state has lost. years ago.
Trump, meanwhile, has seen his support among women, especially in the suburbs of many key swing states, decline since his term in the White House. A September AP-NORC poll found that more than half of registered women voters have a somewhat or very positive view of Harris, while only about a third have a positive view of Trump.
To reverse the trend, Trump has tried to portray himself as someone who can personally protect women from various threats, such as when he suggested at a rally in Pennsylvania last month that women in America will “no longer be abandoned, lonely or afraid.” are. You will no longer be in danger.”
“You will be protected, and I will be your protector,” Trump said at the time. He has also suggested that if he wins, women will have no reason to consider abortion after three judges he appointed helped in 2022. to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which had guaranteed a woman’s right to the procedure.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, Trump will deliver an economic speech in Chicago and a rally in Atlanta.
