WASHINGTON — While President Joe Biden was hosting an event celebrating Black excellence with lawmakers, activists and celebrities at the White House last week, Kamala Harris was on her way to Pennsylvania.
The nation’s first black vice president spoke to Pennsylvania voters about helping small businesses, building more housing and expanding the child tax credit. He said the country “deserves a president of the United States who works for all Americans.”
What she didn’t do was spend time talking about her race, gender or the possibility that she could become the first Black and South Asian woman president of the United States if she defeats Republican Donald Trump.
Rather than openly touting her identity as a woman of color, Harris has chosen to highlight her policies and record to win voters’ support.
She plans to appeal to minority voters in several key venues in the coming days: She’ll speak at a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation awards dinner in Washington on Saturday night, give an interview to members of the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia on Tuesday and appear at an online rally on Thursday featuring Oprah and groups including “Winning with Black Women,” “White Women, Answer the Call” and “South Asians for Harris.”
Harris has “achieved many firsts” throughout her career, but she has never described them as an adjective, said Brian Brokaw, who managed her winning campaign for California attorney general in 2010.
“Her life, her identity, her background and her work experience were all important parts of her campaign,” he said, but added that her “first election victory was not part of her core reasons for why she should be elected to public office. It just happened to be a key outcome of her election.”
Harris’ identity is also reflected in how she chooses to engage with voters. A member of a historically black sorority while at Howard University, she spoke at another sorority’s annual meeting in Houston this summer, telling the women, “I am so happy to be with you all this evening, and I say that as a proud member of the Sacred Order of the Nine. And when I look out at you all here, I see family.”
That’s a departure from Hillary Clinton’s approach in the 2016 Democratic presidential race, when she touted the possibility of breaking the glass ceiling. Aides and allies of Ms. Harris say time is tight in this year’s campaign and a focus on voters rather than Ms. Harris herself may be more valuable.
Crystal McLaughlin of North Carolina, who attended Harris’ rally in Greensboro last week, acknowledged that Harris’ candidacy is an important “historic moment,” but added that what’s more important is seeing “who wants to do the right thing.”
Still, she said Harris’ identity is important, even if it’s not the focus of the campaign.
“This is important not just for black girls, but for all girls,” said McLaughlin, 53, who is black. “If you can see it, you can actually make it happen.”
So far, it has been Trump who has brought race into the campaign, falsely claiming that Harris has belatedly “gone black.” During last week’s presidential debate, Trump again said he had read that Harris “was not black,” when in fact she was.
Harris never referred to herself in her response, instead saying, “I think it’s tragic that someone who aspires to be president has consistently, throughout his career, tried to use race to divide the American people.”
After Biden dropped out of the race in July, polls showed that black Americans were more excited about Harris as the Democratic nominee. About 7 in 10 black adults said they were satisfied with Harris as the Democratic nominee in a late July poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Policy Research. That’s a marked increase from an earlier July survey, when about half of black adults and 15% of Hispanic adults felt the same way about Biden.
Another NORC poll conducted in August found that about half of Black adults said they would be “extremely” or “very” excited to hear Harris elected president, compared with just 3 in 10 who said the same about Biden in March.
Black Americans overwhelmingly identify as Democrats, and about 90% of black voters supported Biden in the 2020 election, according to Votecast, but there are some signs that older black voters are more supportive of Harris than younger ones: A recent Pew Research Center poll found that about 90% of black voters over 50 support Harris, while three-quarters of black voters between the ages of 18 and 49 support her.
Civil rights groups focused on mobilizing Black voters say they have seen increased enthusiasm and engagement since Harris rose to the top of the Democratic field.
The NAACP has promoted messages to its allies that researchers believe will particularly resonate with black voters, such as protecting the rights of black Americans and calling for voting responsibility.
When it comes to economic issues, civil rights groups are calling on organizers and campaign groups to listen to the concerns of black voters.
“Black voters want policy solutions,” said Phaedra Jackson, vice president of unit advocacy and effectiveness at the NAACP, but she added that “representation is important. People are excited to see a Black woman competing for the highest office in the land,” and that interest in an institution increases when Black women are represented there.
The NAACP is focusing its efforts on increasing voter turnout in battleground states where issues such as voter suppression are likely to arise in November.
“Black voters are approachable, we’re not a monolith, and this is a really exciting time to be engaging with voters,” said Tyler Sterling, national campaign director for the NAACP.
John Spencer, 58, a geographer from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, said he wanted Harris to focus on her plans for the future, not her race or gender: Unlike policies, her identity is something people can see just by looking at her, Mr. Spencer said.
“Ideally in this country, politicians should be judged on their platform and not on who they are, their character and anything other than what they stand for,” said Spencer, who is white.
He said Harris’ position is even more important to him because it ultimately affects his 11-year-old daughter, Leah, who attended the Greensboro rally with him.
When Harris takes the stage, her identity as the Democratic presidential nominee is “instantly clear,” said Sheila Carter, 66. Carter, a Black retiree from Durham, North Carolina, who attended the rally, said the discussion of her race and gender takes a back seat to what she offers as a candidate.
“You know who she is,” Carter said, “and she says, ‘Why should I care if I’m black or Indian or whatever? I am who I am, and you see it, and I see it, and the world sees it.'”
Seminera reported from Greensboro, N.C. Poll Editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this report.
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