Former President Barack Obama was ripped by one of his former Ohio delegates for the direct message he had for Black men while on the sidelines of a campaign stop for Vice President Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania on Thursday.
“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, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” Obama said during a surprise visit to Harris’ campaign field office in Pittsburgh before he held a rally in the city.
“So now you’re thinking about sitting out or even supporting somebody who has a history of degrading you?” the former president posed, referring to former President Donald Trump. “Because you think that’s a sign of strength? Because that’s what being a man is, putting women down? That’s not acceptable.”
Obama’s words were ripped by former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner during a CNN appearance Thursday evening, who questioned why Black male voters were “being lectured to” ahead of November.
“Why are Black men being belittled in ways that no other voting group [is]?” Turner, a Democrat, said on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip. “Now, a lot of love for former President Obama, but for him to single out Black men is wrong.”
The blunt message from Obama, who garnered a record turnout among Black voters during his first presidential run in 2008, comes less than a month before the November 5 election, where voters will have a chance to elect the first Black and Asian American female president in American history.
But polling has shown that Harris’ support among Black men may be slipping compared to past elections. In a September survey released by the NAACP, over a quarter (26 percent) of Black men under 50 said they plan to support Trump in November, while 49 percent said they back Harris. The same poll found that two-thirds of Black women (67 percent) support Harris.
Overall, however, Harris holds a double-digit gap over Trump among Black Americans. The same NAACP poll found that 78 percent of respondents felt the same or more excitement about voting than when Obama first ran for office, and 51 percent of those surveyed plan to cast a ballot for Harris. In comparison, Trump garnered just 27 percent of the Black vote overall.
In 2020, nearly 90 percent of Black voters supported President Joe Biden. Obama was backed by 95 percent of the voting bloc in 2008, when he became the first Black president in U.S. history.
Turner said on Thursday that “some of the Black men that I have talked to have their reasons why they want to vote a different way. And even if some of us may not like that, we have to respect it.”
“So unless President Barack Obama is going to go out and lecture every other group of men from other identity groups, my message for Democrats is, don’t bring it here to Black men who, by and large, don’t vote much differently from Black women,” she added. Turner said Thursday that she was a delegate for Obama in 2008 and 2012.
The 2024 election is expected to garner one of the largest gender gaps in U.S. history, and the divide between male and female voters is even more striking among Americans under 30. According to a poll from the Harvard Institute of Politics released in September, Harris leads by 47 points (70 percent to 23 percent) among young female voters. Among young male voters, however, Harris holds only a 17-point gap.
Turner said on Thursday that “Black men are socialized in the same society as any other, any other man,” so issues like misogyny could play a part in why the demographic is not showing up in large numbers for Harris.
“But again, is President Obama and is the Harris-Walz campaign going to lecture other male groups in the same way that they’re lecturing [Black men]?” Turner added. “I don’t think so.”
Obama’s rally in Pittsburgh on Thursday was the first time he hit the campaign trail for Harris. The former president spoke about an array of issues while on stage, including what a future under Harris’ policies would look like while taking numerous jabs at Trump for his economic and immigration plans.
“The reason that some people think … ‘I remember that economy when he first came in being pretty good,'” Obama said. “Yeah, it was pretty good, because it was my economy. We had 75 straight months of job growth that I handed over to him.”
“It wasn’t something he did,” Obama added. “I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans had left me the last time … He didn’t do nothing, except those big tax cuts [‘for billionaires and big corporations’].”
Obama also slammed Trump for his previous immigration policies like building a wall at the southern border and questioned why he didn’t “solve the problem?” Obama continued that Trump didn’t have a plan to solve immigration concerns but that he had a “concept” of a plan.
Newsweek reached out to Obama’s office via email on Thursday for additional comment.
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