Eight years ago, Shawn Gamble Jr. was shunned by his family and friends when he announced that he was supporting former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
Gamble, who grew up in Philadelphia and now lives in Reading, is today the director of grassroots for the Black Conservative Federation, a partisan political organization that promotes Republican candidates and ideals.
“It has not,” Gamble said, “been the easiest road.”
At 26, Gamble is part of a voting bloc that’s gotten a lot of attention in the last few months of the presidential election: young Black men.
Trump is going after Black men, aligning himself with rappers like Philly’s OT7 Quanny, who joined Trump’s entourage and wore a MAGA hat when the president campaigned in the city in June. Trump has said his 34-count felony conviction is why “Black people like” him, and his campaign held a “cigars and cognac” event in Philadelphia, where a Trump surrogate, U.S. Rep Byron Donalds (R., Fla.), drew criticism for saying Black families fared better during the racist Jim Crow era.
But despite his campaign’s outreach, any narrative that suggests Harris might lose out on support from young Black men ignores the data. Black people under 50 are virtually no more likely to vote Republican in 2024 than they were 30 years ago, said Kiana Cox, a senior researcher at Pew Research Center.
In 1994, 16% of Black voters younger than 50 leaned Republican. Today, said Cox, that number is 17%.
An AP-NORC poll conducted in mid-September found most Black voters of all ages and genders viewed Trump negatively, with only 15% reporting a somewhat or very favorable view of him — a slim percentage in line with the Republican preference seen among Black voters over the last 30 years.
On the ground in Philadelphia, Timothy Freeman, 34, doesn’t think he’s part of a demographic that’s getting more conservative.
“It’s something that I don’t want to say seems far-fetched,” said Freeman, “[but] honestly, I would need proof.”
Freeman is a member of Unite Here Local 274, which represents hotel and service workers. He organizes with the union during elections.
Political experts and organizers — who are also Black men under 50 — said the hysteria about their demographic defecting to the Republican Party is at best overblown and, at worst, an attempt to cast blame on Black men in the event Harris loses to Trump.
“Very rarely do I go into a barbershop and I hear people say, ‘Democrats have failed me,’” said Philadelphia Councilmember Isaiah Thomas. “People might say the government has failed Black people, but not Democrats.”
Transactional politics, misinformation, and voter disengagement
Mondale Robinson is the founder and executive director of the Black Male Voter Project, and the mayor of Enfield, N.C. He said Black men aren’t courted outside of an election year.
“I would say that Black men absolutely hate … the transactional nature of how the [Democratic] Party does not show up to address the issues that are plaguing Black men, and are not listening to Black men, if there’s not an election on the ballot,” Robinson, 45, said.
Timothy Welbeck, director of the Center for Anti-Racism at Temple University, said Democrats need to do a better job of telling Black men which policies will help them.
“There are things that will directly impact Black people that aren’t being framed that way,” said Welbeck.
“To the extent that the Biden administration has been an effective administration, I don’t believe they’ve touted their effectiveness in the ways the other administrations have,” he added later.
Several men said misinformation and social media also play a role in disengagement, with posts attacking Harris’ role as a prosecutor and questioning the validity of her race, echoing untrue comments Trump made at a Black journalism conference.
“I want people to know that there’s a conservative effort to communicate information that is not accurate to encourage Black men not to vote,” said Thomas. “I wonder if other demographics experience the same thing.”
Thomas, 40, launched an initiative to register Black men younger than 40 to vote in February.
“I think the biggest overall idea behind most of the things that I hear is an agenda specifically focused on Black men and people not being afraid to say, ‘this is for Black men,’ just like they say, ‘this is for other demographics,’” he said.
Welbeck said the same.
“It seems as though other affinity groups are having their specific needs catered to and the specific needs of Black men are not,” he said. “Whether that is precisely true is another conversation, but that is a particular sentiment.”
At a talk with the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia, Harris addressed Black men specifically.
“I’m working to earn their vote, not assuming I’m going to have it because I’m Black,” Harris said.
When Trump hit the political scene as a brash businessman and first-time politician, Gamble, who is from Philadelphia’s Logan neighborhood, felt like Trump was talking to him.
“I liked what Donald Trump was saying, especially as someone who knew nothing about politics,” said Gamble. “He resonated more with people who were not as familiar with politics because he was an outsider.”
Mount Airy truck driver John McAuley said he doesn’t feel that either party has done a good job reaching out to young Black men like him. But after twice voting for Obama and skipping the 2016 election, McAuley, 36, is now all in for Trump and the Republican Party. He said Democrats became too liberal, highlighting the party’s support for the LGBTQ community as an example. McAuley is a professed Christian, and said he’s drawn to the Republican Party’s talk about God and emphasis on self-accountability.
“I feel like [the Democratic Party] has feminized men,” McAuley said. “If you bring back the role of the man, then I think the woman would be protected, the children would be cared for.”
Cassius James, 38, of South Philadelphia, doesn’t have plans to vote in November and hasn’t voted in a presidential election since 2012, when he cast a ballot for former President Barack Obama.
The reason for his disengagement? “It’s just what they’re talking about,” he said, “I feel like I want to vote for Harris because she’s a Black woman, that’s the only reason.”
Politicians need to physically come to the community more to reach people like him, James said.
“They should be among us and just show face,” he said. “Be outside with us.”
Obama, the first Black president, was set to campaign for Harris in Pittsburgh on Thursday evening.
In past elections, Black men support for Trump actually dropped
Anyone who wants to predict how Black men will vote in November should look at how they have been voting already, said Robinson.
“All we’ve seen is a decrease in Black men’s support for [Trump] every election cycle,” said Robinson. “So even though Black men continue to show the world that we don’t f— with Donald Trump, the world keeps trying to push on Black men that you are becoming more conservative.”
Black men nationally supported the Democratic presidential candidate at a rate of about 86% on average in 2000, 2004, and 2012, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls compiled by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Activities.
The only major shift in Black men’s vote came in 2008, when the group spiked with 95% support for Obama’s first election.
In Pennsylvania in 2016, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a 69-percentage-point lead over Trump among Black male voters, according to exit polls. Trump got 14% of their vote.
As Robinson suggested, Black men’s support for Trump in Pennsylvania dropped in 2020 to just 10%, compared with 89% support for President Joe Biden.
“Eighty-eight to 90% of Black men are doing something, and people are still spending this much time on the 8 to 10% that aren’t,” said Robinson. “What are you asking of Black men that you’re not asking anybody else?”
