Harris to highlight economic opportunities for Black Americans in multistate tour

Vice President Harris will kick off a multistate tour Monday to tout economic opportunities for Black Americans in an effort to mobilize the critical voting base for Democrats ahead of November’s election. 

The Economic Opportunity Tour will begin in Atlanta before an event in Detroit the following week. 

During the tour, Harris will emphasize the Biden administration’s investments in small businesses, job growth, student loan debt forgiveness and affordable housing efforts. 

“President Biden and I are committed to creating an economy in which every person has the freedom to thrive,” Harris said in a statement. 

Harris has made more than 35 trips to 16 states since the start of the year, including a Black History month tour of historically Black colleges and universities and a March trip to Black Wall Street in Durham, N.C., to announce $32 million in funds to support historically underserved entrepreneurs. 

The Biden-Harris reelection campaign has been ramping up its messaging to Black voters in light of new polls showing the demographic becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Democratic Party. 

In March, polling by The Wall Street Journal found that although 57 percent of Black men plan to support Biden in November’s election, 30 percent said they likely will vote for former President Trump.

In the 2020 election, AP VoteCast found that 87 percent of Black men backed Biden, and 12 percent voted for Trump. 

Trump recently has been hoping to build upon the Black voter support he earned in 2020, including hinting at picking a Black running mate. 

But the Biden-Harris campaign team has tried to fight back, releasing two new television ads aimed at highlighting the “disaster” Trump would be for Black Americans if he is reelected.

Politico reported Thursday that Harris’s new tour follows discussions the vice president has had with staff that outreach needs to be about policy, not just politics.

“If you were to ask her about Black Americans, she’d say ‘They’re not a monolith, and they don’t just fall in line,’” a senior official told the news outlet. “‘You need to earn their trust on these issues.’”