How US campaigners are battling Black voter apathy

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On a sunny morning in South Philadelphia’s FDR Park roughly 100 canvassers in matching red sweatshirts are running through drills to convince people in the battleground state of Pennsylvania to cast a vote in the looming US presidential election.

“It does not even matter,” says one, playing the part of an apathetic voter.

The canvassers, all from hospitality labour union Unite Here, are encouraged to ask the voter about their concerns, before launching into an explanation of how the union’s slate of Democratic candidates, led by vice-president Kamala Harris, can address them.

It is not long before the group put those lines to use. As we walk down a quiet residential street in the nearby suburb of Chester, they come across a man who says he is not sure if he is going to vote. He doesn’t know if he is even registered.

“But if you had to choose, which candidate would it be?” asks Aicha Tahirou, a Unite Here employee.

“Whoever will make my life cheaper,” he replies.

Earlier this year, polls showed a surprising shift in US voter intentions. Former president Donald Trump was beginning to make more inroads with Black voters like myself. According to a New York Times/Siena College poll released earlier this month, 15 per cent of Black voters plan to support Trump, up from 9 per cent in 2020. Polls indicate that he has attracted a number of these by criticising the Biden-Harris administration’s economic policies.

More striking to me is the 7 per cent of voters marked by pollers as “did not respond” or “said they did not know.” This is up from just 1 per cent in 2020 and 2016.

In an effort to address this, Unite Here international union president Gwen Mills has organised a campaign to knock on 3mn doors across 10 battleground states in the US election.

The union’s membership, which is largely women and people of colour, say they have seen a shift in the voters interviewed this year. Black Americans are not just drifting away from their generational support for the Democratic party, they appear to be checking out of politics altogether.

This is a change from 2020, when the people canvassers approached were fired up about the Covid pandemic and the economy. Across the entire US, 66 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot, the highest share since 1900. This included the highest number of Black Americans since Barack Obama was on the ticket, according to analysis by NYU Law’s Brennan Center for Justice.

The electorate is not expected to best that record this year. Democratic strategists had initially hoped that the nomination of the country’s first Black and Asian woman to lead a presidential campaign would reignite enthusiasm among voters of colour. But so far that does not seem to be the case.

“I think a lot of what they get is not actually a conversation about the issues, but . . . just trying to get people engaged with the process and hopeful and taking their rights seriously and encouraged for their family and for their future,” Mills said during a recent press conference. “And it’s a very hard thing to battle when people have a sense that their vote doesn’t matter.”

Not every canvasser agrees. “They are saying that people of colour are going for Trump which isn’t the case,” said Tim Freeman, who has been talking to voters six days a week since June. The Black and Latino Pennsylvanians that “know what’s going on” are overwhelmingly planning to vote for Harris, Freeman told me. The few that are not tell him that they have not been following the election at all.

At the Philadelphia airport, stadium and hotel staff represented by Unite Here are trying to convince people that by casting a ballot, they can change common complaints on prescription drug costs, access to union jobs and gun violence.

On our drive back downtown from Chester, we pass a billboard forecasting record voter turnout in Pennsylvania. The canvassers are not so sure about that, but they say they are certain about the election’s eventual outcome.

“I believe Harris is going to win,” Tahirou said. “We are the ones knocking on doors. We know.”

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