Getty ImagesFormer President Barack Obama headlined an all-star rally for Kamala Harris in Georgia on Thursday, as the Democrats try to shore up support with the state’s powerful base of black voters.
“You need to remind folks who were still on the side lines the election is about more than policies, it’s about values and it is about caring,” Obama told the crowd.
Obama was preceded by actor Samuel L Jackson, director Spike Lee, and director and actor Tyler Perry, as well as Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock and rocker Bruce Springsteen.
Opinion polling shows that while Democrats are still expected to win large majorities of black voters, Harris has lost some ground with the demographic.
Some 70% of black men said they were backing Harris in this election, compared to 85% who backed her predecessor Joe Biden in the 2020 election, an October New York Times/Siena College poll suggested.
Keeping their turnout high for Democrats is critical for Harris’s chance at the presidency.
At the James L Hallford stadium in the Atlanta suburbs, however, the enthusiasm was palpable. Harris held the rally in DeKalb County, a reliably Democratic stronghold that plays a crucial role in the party’s success in Georgia.
Addressing a crowd of more than 20,000 predominantly black voters, speaker after speaker pointed to Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump’s past behaviour as a reason for Georgians to reject his candidacy.
Warnock pointed to Trump’s history of spreading a conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the US.
And he invoked Trump’s statements about the Central Park Five, a group of black and Latino men who were wrongly convicted of assaulting a jogger in 1989 and exonerated years later.
“I do not believe there’s going to be this wave… [this] significant number of black men are going to vote for Donald Trump,” Warnock said.
Perry, the actor and producer, picked up where Warnock left off.
“In Donald Trump’s America there is no dream that looks like me,” he said.
Getty ImagesObama himself previously faced criticism for saying some black men were not supporting Harris because she was a woman.
On Thursday, he made a more general argument aimed at men who might find Trump’s tough persona appealing.
“I’ve noticed this, especially with some men, they think that Trump’s behaviour is a sign of strength,” Obama said. “I am here to tell you that is not what real strength is.”
LaDena Bolton, who is running for office in DeKalb County, has detected some voter apathy among black men.
“There’s been so much conversation of how they could make or break the race,” she said.
She believed appearances by Jackson, Lee, Perry and Obama would help Harris.
For some the former president, who occupied the White House between 2009 and 2017, was the main event – a number of rally-goers headed for the exits after Obama spoke.
“I’m so ready to vote for Kamala,” said Nur Ali, who brought her nine-year-old daughter to the rally and stayed until the end.
The Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness programme had eliminated over $200,000 of her debt, Ms Ali said.
But she was especially excited to see “my guy”, Obama.
Harris herself made a closing pitch that touched on Trump’s fitness for office, and her pledge to protect abortion rights.
She has sought to emphasise her economic plans for working Americans in the final weeks of the race while portraying Trump as a danger to democracy.
“She’s been the vice-president for the past four years,” said Kri Pek, who attended Harris’ rally. “She definitely knows what it takes, and we support her.”
LaTanya Taylor was excited about the historic nature of her candidacy and what it represented.
“I’m just praying that it goes in her favour, because everybody needs change,” Ms Taylor said.
Trump has argued to black voters that his economic policies would be better for their community than a Harris administration, and cast the Democrats as a party taking their votes for granted but not delivering results.
That resonated with attendees at Trump’s rally in Duluth on Wednesday.
“His views on the border, his views on the economy” has won the vote of Antonio Kelly, 45, who brought his family to the Trump rally with him. “I like the fact that when he ran the first time, everything he said he was going to do, he did.”
“He’s America first, and the other party is focused on anyone but America,” said D’Angelo, who is voting for Trump and asked the BBC to withhold his last name.
“Democrats just pander…what I’ve seen from Trump is that he does the things he says he’s gonna do,” D’Angelo said.
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