Wanted: Male voters for Harris in tough election battle with Trump

WASHINGTON - Ms Kamala Harris is making a major push for male voters, after an appeal by Mr Barack Obama to black men to drop sexist attitudes highlighted a key issue for the Democrat in November’s US presidential election.

As polls show Donald Trump maintaining a lead among men, Ms Harris and her campaign are appealing to them to shun the Republican’s macho “bullying” and back the US Vice-President instead.

A New York Times/Siena survey of likely male voters earlier this week showed former president Trump, a Republican, with a substantial lead over Ms Harris, by 51 per cent to 40 per cent.

Ms Harris rarely mentions her gender despite being America’s first female vice-president, preferring to avoid making it a central issue in her campaign.

But now there are signs that she is being forced to address the issue anyway.

On Oct 15, Ms Harris will appear at a town hall in Detroit with Charlamagne Tha God, a comedian and radio host whose show is popular with young, black male voters.

She is also deploying running mate Tim Walz, a folksy Midwestern former football coach, in a bid to reach out to male voters with less than four weeks until election day on Nov 5.

Mr Walz has appeared at football games and regularly talks about his love of hunting.

And their campaign this week launched “Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz” in a clear pitch to male voters.

The Harris campaign also said it would unleash “Big Dog Bill Clinton” to woo younger black men in southern battleground states next week – despite his history of sex scandals.

But it was Mr Obama’s comments to “the brothers” as he made

his first appearance on the campaign trail for Ms Harris

on Oct 10 that made it clear that Democrats are concerned.

Saying he had some “truths” that he wanted the black community to hear at a campaign field office in Pittsburgh, Mr Obama said that “you’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that”.

“Because part of it makes me think – and I’m speaking to men directly – part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”

Trump has long had a strong base among white men, but polls show he has recently garnered significant support among black men – and Hispanic men too.

A poll by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in September showed 63 per cent of black voters backed Ms Harris over 13 per cent for Trump – but while support for Ms Harris among black women was at 67 per cent, it fell to 49 per cent among black men under 50.

While Trump has recently been stepping up his machismo-drenched pitch to young men on right-wing podcasts, Ms Harris has also been reaching out.

Last week, she appeared on former “shock jock” turned pro-Harris radio host Howard Stern’s show where she talked about her love of Formula One.

“She should try to do better with men than she is currently doing,” Ms Sarah Longwell, a conservative strategist and executive director of Republican Voters Against Trump, said in an interview with the Playbook Deep Dive podcast.

She pointed to figures in a recent Harvard-Harris poll showing that 18- to 29-year-old men backed Ms Harris by 17 points while women did so 47 points for Ms Harris, adding: “That’s a big gap.”

“It is the men. It is Hispanic men. It is black men, which means it is part of this bigger cultural thing with men,” she said.

It is not just Ms Harris who is chasing voters of the opposite gender, however.

Next week, Trump will hold a town hall with women, despite his own history of sex scandals and as Democrats hammer him for his stance on abortion. AFP