Voting groups that got a boost from Harris' candidacy are still working to persuade voters of color

[October 21, 2024]  BY AYANNA ALEXANDER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Left-leaning voter engagement groups that saw a surge in support and energy after Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democrats' White House nominee are aligning with a key pillar of her campaign in the final stretch before Election Day — trying to turn out uncommitted voters of color.

But many of those groups are finding they still have much work to do to introduce Harris and her policies. The challenges reflect Harris' late campaign start, as well as attempts to overcome the earlier lack of enthusiasm for a rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump. They also reflect inroads that Republicans have been trying to make in particular with Black and Latino voters.

Activists with Siembra NC, a grassroots organization that focuses on Latino communities in North Carolina, found many potential voters are willing to vote in downballot races for state and local offices while leaving the top of the ticket blank. Their feeling is that the closer-to-home races affect their daily lives, while neither Trump nor Harris addresses all their desires in a presidential candidate.

“What we’ve had to do is a lot of conversations around trust-building, and that takes time,” said Kelly Morales, the group’s co-director. “It’s really about helping folks see that not casting a vote is also a political decision.”

The organization hosted a get-out-the vote event followed by a block party in late September in Greensboro. Labor policies, Harris’ position on the border and Trump’s rhetoric about the Latino community were top issues, Morales said.

The group, which endorsed Harris, ended up knocking on nearly 1,000 doors during the event and had attendees from multiple counties.

Persuading voters of color, particularly Black and Latino men, has become a priority for the Harris and Trump campaigns with early voting underway across the country, with increased outreach to both groups in a recognition that the race is likely to come down to seven swing states.

Like Siembra NC, many voter engagement groups saw a renewed sense of enthusiasm after Harris became the Democratic nominee. At 59, she is more than two decades younger than Biden, who's 81. If she wins, Harris would be the first Black woman, the first Asian American and the first South Asian American elected president.

But as the Nov. 5 election nears, motivating undecided voters in the battleground states is a challenge.

"We have to be mindful that exuberance and excitement does not lead to us not doing the work. You still have to get people out,” said Michael A. Blake, founder and CEO of KAIROS Democracy Project, a nonpartisan group that is focusing on engaging young voters and people of color.

Activists say the biggest obstacles are restrictive voting laws passed in several Republican-controlled states after the 2020 election, attempts by right-leaning groups to purge voter rolls and conflict in the Middle East.

That's been evident for groups such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Atlanta, despite the initial excitement over South Asian representation on both sides of the presidential ticket: Usha Vance, wife of Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump's running mate, would be America's first South Asian second lady if Trump wins.

“While there’s an excitement, there’s also this desire to hold whichever party is at the top of the ticket accountable to what our communities need,” said Murtaza Khwaja, the group’s executive director.

In Texas, which has a closely watched Senate race, officials said they had removed more than 1 million voters from the rolls since 2021. This raised concern among voter outreach groups such as Asian Texans for Justice over whether eligible voters might have been purged but would run out of time to correct it before the election.

Language barriers add to the already complex process, said executive director Lily Trieu. Texas has seen a roughly 63% growth in its Asian population since 2012 and has nearly 1.1 million eligible Asian American and Pacific Islander voters as of this year, according to APIA Vote, a nonpartisan advocacy group that focuses on Asian and Pacific Islander voters.

Salvador Fonseca knocks on a door with Elena Jimenez as they visit a home during a voter engagement event for the Latino community in Greensboro, N.C., Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

“These are new hurdles that we’re seeing in response to this rise and enthusiasm,” Trieu said.

Biden’s decision to drop out of the race this summer meant a late start for the Harris campaign but led to a wave of voter registrations, significant increases in volunteers and a jump in donations to left-leaning voting groups.

Voto Latino said it registered more than 50,000 people in the 10 days after Biden withdrew on July 21. By comparison, the nonprofit advocacy group registered 2,250 people in July 2016 and 25,150 in July 2020.

More than half of this year’s new registrations were for voters age 18 to 29. Most of the increase has come in Arizona and North Carolina, important swing states, and Florida, Trump’s adopted home state. The group registered over 11,000 Latino voters in Arizona alone, more than half after Biden’s announcement.

“With Kamala Harris on top of the ticket, with enthusiasm that is organically coming out of young people, the charge among donors and folks who care about a robust democracy should be where can we close the voter registration gap,” said Maria Teresa Kumar, the group’s president and CEO.

Black fraternities and sororities, known collectively as “The Divine Nine,” have been a source of strength for Harris. She was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority while attending Howard University, one of the nation's most prominent historically Black universities.

On a recent afternoon, dozens of students at Spelman College in Atlanta lined up at a voter registration drive organized by the campus chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha and its brother chapter, Alpha Phi Alpha, at nearby Morehouse College.

The chapter president, Taylor Kerr, a psychology major at Spelman, said the organizations held the event because it was important for students to be civically engaged and have the opportunity to ask questions about registering and voting. The organizations were not allowed to endorse candidates.

Caleb Cage, a 21-year-old religion major at Morehouse, said he was there because of the excitement of having the chance to vote for a historic candidate.

“With Harris at the top of the ticket, there’s just a lot more energy," he said. "People are more ecstatic and a lot more involved,” he said.

After Biden’s decision to leave the race, Delta Sigma Theta, a historically Black sorority, released a paid advertisement — the first of its kind — that centered on Black people and issues such as bodily autonomy and the right to learn about Black history, which has recently been under attack by some conservative school boards and state legislatures.

The ad was broadcast across various networks and streaming platforms, focusing on battleground states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania. The sorority already had a public service announcement running before the switch on the Democratic ticket, but changed it to focus on what it sees as being at stake for Black Americans.

Kerry-Ann Hamilton, the executive producer of the ad, said the campaign reached more than 200,000 potential voters. It was also intended in part to reach men and those who vote infrequently, said Elsie Cooke-Holmes, Delta Sigma Theta's international president.

“It’s about making sure that we get to our community, get to lower-propensity voters, those who might feel like there’s no reason for me to go to vote," she said. "All of that is important, on all counts. It's about all of us."

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Associated Press writer Gary Fields contributed to this report.

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