A round-table event offers a glimpse of the challenges Harris faces and the effort to overcome them.
- Share full article
Nicolas O’Rourke, a Philadelphia city councilor, during a City Council meeting this year.
Nicolas O’Rourke is no fan of former President Donald Trump, but he wanted to talk about him.
A Philadelphia city councilor and a member of the progressive Working Families Party, O’Rourke was on his feet at the HairAfter Barber Lounge, a freshly renovated barbershop illuminated by ring lights that glinted off shiny new chairs. It was Friday night, and O’Rourke had gathered about a dozen Black men for a round-table discussion aimed less at changing their minds than it was at hearing them out.
“Are there any issues,” O’Rourke asked, “that you think Trump is mostly right about, compared to who he’s up against?”
The owner of the shop spoke up first.
“He’s right about a lot compared to Kamala,” Bud Harrod, 37, said, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris before listing off the areas of agreement he saw between himself and Trump: immigration, taxes and the belief that abortion rules should be set by the states.
“I think he’s right about her not necessarily having done enough to earn the position,” said Harrod, who then suggested that the dire warnings Democrats have made about a second Trump administration were exaggerated. “Regardless of what they say about him, we had been under his presidency for four years, and we didn’t die,” Harrod said.
Harrod told me that he has not voted in a presidential election since he cast a ballot for Barack Obama, then a senator from Illinois, in 2008. He is thinking about voting this time, though — and he’s leaning toward Trump.
Three weeks away from the election, the potential strength Trump has shown with Black men like Harrod has left Democrats deeply alarmed. In recent days, Harris has been making her case to Black men with a whirlwind of media appearances, a pair of television ads and the release of an economic plan aimed directly at them.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Source: nytimes.com
