Poll finds Harris expanding her lead with young Black men

Vice President Harris appears to be increasing her support among young Black men, a crucial voting bloc she has struggled with in recent weeks.

New polling from the Alliance for Black Equality, a super PAC mobilizing Black voters in swing states, found that Harris has increased her support by 10 points with Black Generation Z men since early October. 

Overall, Harris’s support among young Black men increased from 59 percent to 69 percent between Oct. 4 and Oct. 19. Among Black men ages 23-29, her support rose from 49.9 percent to 62.2 percent. Similarly, among Black men 18-22, support skyrocketed from 47.7 percent to 52.7 percent. 

If she can continue to make these types of gains over the next week, the poll predicts Harris would be able to win more than 90 percent of Black voters’ support nationwide. 

“This poll is an encouraging sign that Vice President Harris has the potential to get to where she needs to be with Black male voters in order to win on November 5th. In just three weeks, she has made serious gains with young Black men and increased their support of her by 10 points,” Alvin Tillery, co-founder of 2040 Strategy Group and founder of the Alliance for Black Equality, said in a statement. 

“These numbers provide evidence that Black men are not holding back their votes from Harris because of her gender, and that Harris needs to keep doing what she’s doing: reminding voters of Trump’s threats to Black life and civil rights. If she continues along this path, I suspect her support from Black men will only keep growing.” 

Despite an early fundraising effort by Win With Black Men, Harris has struggled to earn Black men’s support since the launch of her campaign in July. Some, like former President Obama, posited this could be because men don’t feel comfortable voting for a woman. 

Harris has since tried to recruit support by appearing on different podcasts, including "The Breakfast Club" with Charlamagne tha God and "The Shade Room." She has also been promoting her “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men,” an economic plan targeted at the demographic.

Still, the University of Chicago’s latest GenForward poll found that if the election were held today, 26 percent of Black men 18-40 said they would vote for Trump.

But the alliance's poll found Harris cut into this support by focusing on how Trump is a threat to civil rights and Black life. 

When poll respondents watched ads from the Harris campaign highlighting how a second Trump administration could affect the Black community, more than 82 percent of respondents said he would be harmful to Black Americans. The poll also found strong opposition to Trump when ads emphasized his comments on stop-and-frisk and policing. 

“Harris hasn’t had time to play the long game and court Black male voters over a year-long campaign — she’s had three months to sprint a marathon. That’s why the ground she has gained in the past few weeks is critical,” said Tabitha Bonilla, co-founder and head of public affairs at 2040 Strategy Group. 

“Every pledge of support counts and is a sign that her shift in strategy to speak more directly to the Black community is a smart move. We should continue to see a positive trend line, as long as Harris continues talking directly about the issues that will be critical to win over Black men.”

The poll, which surveyed 1,500 people, was conducted Oct. 15-19 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.