MLK III’s Wife Says Black Men Shouldn’t Be Blamed For 2024 Results

If vice president Kamala Harris loses the upcoming presidential election, black men should not be to blame, said Martin Luther King III, the son of the civil rights icon.

“This election is not going to be won or lost by the number of black men who support (Harris) or don’t support him (Harris), even though it will probably be very thin,” King told USA TODAY in an interview Thursday. “You can’t go and say, well, it’s black men’s fault.”

“That’s where they seem to be trying to go,” he added.

Black men have historically been a core constituency for Democrats. But in Harris’ 2024 race against former Republican incumbent Donald Trumpsupport among these voters for the Democratic ticket has declined.

Polls show Harris still winning over most black men. In a New York Times/Siena College poll earlier this month, 70 percent of black men said they would vote for Harris, while 20 percent chose Trump and 10 percent were undecided or refused to vote. answer.

Her support is down from President Joe Biden, who won 87 percent of black male voters in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.

And in a race as tight as this year’s, every vote means changing the final outcome.

But King, the eldest son of Martin Luther King, Jr., said black men alone are not taking responsibility for Democrats seeking to keep the White House.

“To win this election, it takes a coalition of women, men, black men, white men, all of them, Latinos and Hispanics, in some cases, Native Americans,” King said.

The narrative that black men would have cost Harris, who would be the first woman and black woman elected US president, the Oval Office is already “set,” King said. Reports of anxiety from Democrats about the support of black men in this election have on for the past few weeks.

Former President Barack Obama put a attention to concern during a stop at a Harris campaign office in Pittsburgh earlier this month. He suggested that misogyny could be to blame because it clouds their judgment.

“You come with all kinds of reasons and excuses,” Obama said in an address to black men. “Part of it makes me think that, well, you’re just not feeling the idea of having a woman as president. , and come up with other alternatives and other reasons for it.”

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Black men aren’t the only voting bloc Democrats are focused on and worried about.

The vice president appeared lost ground with Latin American voterswho in a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll released this week chose Trump over Harris 49 percent to 38 percent. In a similar poll in August, Latino voters favored Harris 53 percent to 37 percent.

With so much attention on black men right now, King and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, told USA TODAY that they expect those voters and their decisions to be closely scrutinized after Election Day. But would black men get as much credit for a Harris win as they would get the blame for her loss?

“Probably not,” Waters King said. “I think, as Martin said, it seems like the narrative is more prone to blame.”