Is Trump really winning over Black men? In Georgia, the message is mixed

Younger Black voters are drifting toward Trump. Older Black voters want to send a message, Eric Garcia reports from outside polling stations for early voters

(Eric Garcia/The Independent)

On the second day of early voting in Stone Mountain, Georgia, plenty of people of all ages filed in and out of the Hairston Crossing Library.

All the while, Ronny Herndon walked around the building. But he did not cast his ballot and is not sure if he will vote.

“It's crazy I'm being asked this,” Herndon told The Independent. “A lot of my friends will laugh.”

Herndon said that although he didn’t vote in the last election, Trump did better than he expected as president. But he doesn’t like some of his plans for a second term.

“I'm a human, so I just look at people as other humans, not at color,” he said — and he doesn’t believe a lot of Trump’s latest ideas are very humane. But he’s not a fan of Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I think she's just saying things that everybody wants to hear,” he said.

Both Harris and Trump’s campaigns are making large plays for disaffected Black voters like Herndon. Trump appeared at a football game for the University of Georgia and the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa recently, and Harris recently appeared on the podcast of Charlamagne Tha God. Earlier this week, she also rolled out an “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” that included providing 1 million fully forgivable loans for Black entrepreneuers, legalizing marijuana, and launching a health initiative specifically for Black men.

In addition, Harris’s agenda would support a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City found that more Black consumers than white consumers own cryptocurrency.

The ambivalence about voting among Black men concerned some of the other early voters at the library.

(The Independent/Eric Garcia)

“One of the things that I think is important right now is that a lot of the young folks get out and vote, and we've been encouraging a lot of young folks to come out and vote,” Eion Dollerson told The Independent. While Dollerson did not disclose how he would vote, he did say he would encourage young people to “to do their research and to also get a chance to sit down and listen to all of the issues that are being presented right now.”

While Trump has repeatedly trashed early voting and his followers have mixed feelings toward it, many Black voters and Democrats stressed the need to cast their ballot early.

Renita Woods, who wore a mask that said “Pray through it,” said she proudly cast her ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“My ancestors died so I could have an opportunity to vote,” she told The Independent. Early voting ads on hip hop radio stations have echoed this message in the state that produced civil rights luminaries such as Martin Luther King Jr and John Lewis.

“I think Donald Trump is a narcissist, and he lies all the time and he can't even make a complete sentence,” Woods continued. “I don't even understand why people are voting for him. It scares me, as a matter of fact, that so many people are blind to him, and he promotes hate and racism.”

A recent New York Times/Siena College survey of likely Black voters showed that while 78 percent of Black voters support Harris compared to 15 percent who support Trump, starker contrasts exist along gender and age.

The survey found that 20 percent of Black men support Trump compared to 12 percent of Black women. In addition, 21 percent of young Black people under 29 support Trump, while just 13 percent of Black voters aged 65 and older do the same.

“For Black men, he’s driving economic empowerment through job creation and workforce training, breaking cycles of generational debt,” Janiyah Thomas, the director for the Trump campaign’s Black media outreach, told The Independent in a statement. “For Black women, his focus is on education and small business growth — strengthening Black families and ensuring the American Dream becomes a reality for more of us.”

Yet Democrats have brushed off concerns about Trump winning over Black men. On Friday, the Democratic National Committee held a press call with Martin Luther King Jr’s son Martin Luther King III and his wife, Andrea Waters King. The late civil rights activist’s son that talk about Trump’s support among Black voters.

“I'd be very, very surprised if the numbers they are talking about reaching [are true]. Yes, he has gotten some Black support, and maybe higher than any other Republican in recent year, but I think some of this is programmed and promoted,” King said in response to a question from The Independent. “All of us must be engaged by fully talking about... what the Vice President has done, is doing, and what she's going to continue to do when elected as president of the United States.”

During the beginning of the call, King’s Zoom feed faded in and out until he finally defaulted and began speaking from next to his wife, who had a better internet connection. Black women appear to be hearing the message clearly ahead of the election, but Black men are hearing the same distortion regularly.