During a recent MSNBC roundtable discussion, Black male voters stated they knew at least one other Black man devoted to voting for former President Trump in the November election.
The conversation came during a weekend network special about the upcoming presidential election and its implications should Kamala Harris become the Democratic nominee.
“How many of you know a Black man who has expressed to you that they’re committed to voting for Donald Trump?” Coleman asked.
Each of the four participants raised their hands.
“For the brothers who have told that to you, has the emergence of Kamala Harris changed that?” he asked.
“No,” they replied.
Another respondent stated that the reason his buddy was going to vote for Donald Trump was the “stimulus checks.” One observed that a few Black men he knew were for Trump because of “interest rates.”
The Missouri Democrat told MSNBC host Alex Witt his key takeaway from the sit downs is that Black voters are “not a monolith.”
“It’s an intergenerational conversation that I was able to have, really inviting a bunch of different perspectives about what the enthusiasm has been since Kamala Harris has entered the race for president, and then also for some people, how it hasn’t changed,” he said.
“I heard from young people who talked about their issues, not necessarily being wowed by the significance of Kamala Harris as a Black woman, because their frame of reference for the presidency is President Obama. So they’ve had a Black president,” Coleman added.
In response, Coleman noted that Black voters are feeling a sense of pressure to back Harris even though they might not be clear on her legislative platform or policies.
“One of the things that I learned was that there is a sense from some people to just get on the bandwagon regardless of what she is talking about because of the fact that she is a Black woman. I thought that was a very interesting dynamic,” Coleman said.
In one segment, Coleman asked the same group of Black male voters if they felt a community obligation to back Harris at the top of the ticket.
“Rather significantly….we have already seen that push and that call for us to rally behind her,” Corey Alexander, a teacher, responded. “She already had my vote… the Biden administration actually campaigned on forgiving student loans and they forgave my wife’s – that was a direct benefit for me. So they had my vote solidified on that. But I do feel like the symbolism of the moment does urge us a little bit more even without hearing the platform to get behind her.”
Financial manager, Curt Quillen, said he felt demonized for challenging Harris’s positions.
“It is kind of doubled for me, personally, because it is kind of like you are almost a villain if you have a question. It is almost like, you are anti- something, because you are questioning something,” he told Coleman. “Politically, because it is such a finite timetable of when you have to make a decision, it doesn’t leave room to have a real in-depth conversation. You are almost put in a place where you have to just say, come on, let’s go.”
