Black women on Kamala Harris and their party’s future

By now, you’ve probably heard the message loud and clear from Democrats: This election is all about unity. 

The Today, Explained podcast team has been at the Democratic National Convention in  Chicago this week, and inside and outside the perimeter of the United Center, Democrats are buzzing with exuberance and relief: They now believe they have a real shot at winning the White House in 2024, and the party’s toughest issues are not a welcome topic of conversation.

Tonight, after accepting the party’s nomination earlier in the week from the campaign trail, Kamala Harris will appear in Chicago to close out the convention, carrying the mantle of the “renewed sense of hope” that Michelle Obama — and the rest of the Democratic Party — have bestowed upon her. 

First, though, Today, Explained sat down with three Black women delegates for Harris to ask about the thorniest challenges, from Gaza policy to identity politics, that Democrats will face in these next 11 weeks before Election Day.  

The delegates are: 

• Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, 58 
• Hala Ayala, former Virginia State General Assembly member, 51  
• Mo Jenkins, precinct chair in Harris County, Texas, 25

All three committed to cast their votes for Harris and consider it their role to support and defend Democratic Party policies. But we picked at the party’s scabs a little bit and found that even the most faithful Democrats were willing to acknowledge that Black voters and nonvoters are no longer the assured bloc of support they have been for decades and that the Israel-Palestine conflict has caused a worrisome fissure between the official party and young progressives. 

Here’s what they had to say. You can hear more of the discussion here on Today, Explained. 

Gaza and the US policy on Israel remain an open sore for young progressives

Americans’ disapproval of Israeli military actions in Gaza eased this summer, but 48 percent still disapprove, according to a Gallup poll conducted in June. This week, thousands of protesters, mostly keffiyeh-clad and young, were waiting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — or “Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala,” to them — in Chicago. On Monday, they gathered at Union Park and marched along a circuitous route outside the convention center to demand that the US end aid to Israel. They will march the same route Thursday ahead of Harris’s acceptance speech. 

It’s a live issue for many voters, but especially people like Hala Ayala, who is of Lebanese descent. 

Ayala points out that Harris called for an “immediate ceasefire” back in March, and told us she’d met Harris and felt seen on the issue of Gaza. “I took that authentically because that’s who she is, and I took that as there’s more work to be done,” she said. 

The issue of Gaza is also fraught for Gen Z politician Mo Jenkins. Nearly 50 percent of Democrats or Democratic-leaning young adults under 30 say they sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis, according to Pew. That doesn’t always line up with the party’s loyalties: The Biden administration just approved the sale of $20 billion in arms to Israel over the next five years.  

When her Black constituents complain to her about pro-Palestinian activists refusing to back a Black woman candidate for president or not paying enough attention to ignored wars in Sudan or Congo, Jenkins said she tells them that she needs to join the system in order to bring about change. 

When they ask why she’s leaving them in the cold, her response is: “‘I’m not leaving you in the cold … We’re going to end up in the Arctic if I don’t do the work necessary to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president.’”

The Democratic Party no longer has the default support of Black Americans

It won’t be clear until after the election whether Black voters will turn out for Harris as they have for Democratic candidates in the past, but much has been made in recent months about flagging party support among Black Americans. 

Data supports the idea that the once-reliable Dem bloc has splintered considerably since 2008, with more Black would-be voters saying they plan instead to cast a vote for former President Donald Trump. This was certainly true when Joe Biden was at the top of the ticket, and now, even with Harris as the Democrats’ candidate for president, a significant share of Black voters are still leaning toward Trump.  

Seventy percent of Black voters polled in July picked Harris over Trump on a hypothetical ballot, up from 59 percent who backed Biden in May and June polls, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. But Trump’s share of the Black vote also rose slightly, to 12 percent in July from 9 percent in May and June.

Ayala, the Woodbridge, Virginia-based delegate, says the party is well aware of this shuffling of allegiances: “Yeah, there’s been a separation [between Black men and women on politics]. We’ve seen it. Like, we can’t deny that.” 

Jenkins said her Black male constituents in Houston often tell her they are voting for Trump “because he put a stimulus check in my hand.” She said she’ll remind them that their checks “got delayed because he wanted his name on it. … I think it’s a confusion about the policy process.” 

Her concern is whether she and other Democrats can effectively set the record straight and make a case to enough of these Trump-interested Black voters ahead of Election Day. 

Identity politics could be a stumbling block

This has been a very identity- and social justice-forward DNC. That is a realm Kamala Harris is comfortable in, but it also raises the question for Democrats: Will a focus on identity help them win the White House in November?

Many analysts have urged the Harris campaign to avoid talking outright about her race and gender. We asked our roundtable about the theoretical 49-year-old white man in Michigan, a toss-up vote who has voted Democrat in the past. Will Harris talking about her identity as a Black and South Asian woman undermine her chance of getting his vote?

Stratton, the Illinois lieutenant governor, said emphatically that the Democratic Party also needs to talk about economic issues that impact the whole middle class, to draw voters like him in with discussions of “workers’ rights and making sure that we stand with organized labor. There are a number of things that we’re going to have to lay out when we talk about reducing gas prices and food prices and all of those other things.

“Those are things that everyday Americans are going to want to know.” 

This story originally appeared in Today, Explained, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter. Sign up here for future editions.