Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's pick of Kamala Harris as his running mate showed his commitment to Black voters, African-American activists said, but they warned it would not guarantee him the support he needs to win.
DETROIT - Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris as his running mate showed his commitment to Black voters, African-American activists said, but they warned it would not guarantee him the support he needs to win.
Some prominent Black political operatives had urged Biden to choose a Black woman as the country grappled with nationwide protests against racial injustice and as the coronavirus pandemic disproportionately hurt people of color.“He’s answering the call of millions of us, and it’s a really critical message to the base of the party: I see you, I hear you,” said Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, a group that promotes women of color in U.S. politics.
Other Black leaders said Harris, a U.S. senator from California, has a record of building a multi-racial coalition of voters that would boost Biden in the Nov. 3 election. But Shropshire said adding Harris to the ticket would not be enough, and that the Biden campaign still needed to accelerate its local outreach efforts given that early voting is beginning soon in some states.Many Black activists and voters have said Biden’s policies were the most important factor in winning their support, not the race of his running mate.
They pan Biden for his vote as a senator in favor of a 1994 crime bill that critics see as a cause of current mass incarceration, and for his staunch opposition to the Defund the Police movement following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody in May.
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