This story, focused on the Biden campaign, is the first in a two-part series on how the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns are reaching out to Black and Hispanic voters in North Carolina. See Part Two, looking at the Trump campaign, here.
DURHAM, N.C. — North Carolina state Rep. Zack Hawkins said he decided to take part in a new commercial for the Biden-Harris campaign because he knows the race here will be close.
“North Carolina is a purple state, it truly is,” he said in an interview with Spectrum News 1. “There will be no blowouts. We have to work for every single vote.”
Black voters in North Carolina overwhelmingly support Joe Biden. Recent polls show the former vice president with a slight lead over Donald Trump in North Carolina, but those are mostly within the statistical margin of error.
A recent poll from CNN shows 76 percent of likely voters identifying as people of color support Biden, and 18 percent for Trump.
The Biden campaign is adding new staff in North Carolina to reach Black and Latino voters and releasing new ads filmed in the state to specifically reach these communities.
Of North Carolina’s 7.1 million registered voters, about 1.5 million are Black and about 221,000 are Hispanic, according to data from the state Board of Elections.
Hawkins, who represents Durham’s District 31 in the state House, said, “People are pretty nervous about the impacts of COVID,” which has hit communities of color harder than white communities.
He said his own mother has just been released from the hospital after battling coronavirus. “It’s hit home for a lot of people,” Hawkins said.
People in his community are wary of in-person campaign events, Hawkins said, so the Biden campaign is relying on virtual events over Zoom and social media, along with traditional political advertisements and smaller events where people can stand apart from each other.
As the calendar ticks closer to the November 3 General Election, Hawkins said the campaign will need to move from convincing voters to cast their ballots for Biden to getting out the vote in minority communities.
Antoine Mitchell, a Raleigh attorney who also appeared in the series of ads based in a Durham arbershop, said he’s seen a generational divide in Black voters. “For older African Americans, voting is more reflexive,” he said.
Younger people in the Black community, he said, are more willing to protest for what they feel is right.
“Turnout plays a very important part” in this year’s presidential election, he said. Looking back four years ago to Hilary Clinton’s loss, “Just African American turnout could have turned that election for Hilary” in North Carolina, he said.
Duke University Prof. Kerry Haynie agreed. “Turnout would have swung that vote,” he told Spectrum News 1. If Black voters had turned out for Clinton the way they did for Barack Obama, she would have been able to win the state.
And turnout could swing North Carolina this year. Haynie said if the Biden campaign wants to win North Carolina’s 15 electoral college votes, they need to work with people who already have roots in the state’s Black and Latino communities.
He recalled his mother, who was a precinct captain in his native Kannapolis. She knew her neighbors and how to get them to turn out to cast a ballot. “She saw them every day,” he said.
When it comes to maintaining those personal connections, Haynie said, “both parties have lost their way.” Growing those community connections, along with longstanding initiatives like Black churches’ “souls to the polls” efforts, could be the path to winning in North Carolina.
“Criticizing Donald Trump is a waste of money,” Haynie said, adding the campaign should be focused on getting people to the polls.
Haynie said there are “anxieties about the pandemic” but also distrust of the postal service to mail in ballots in Black communities. “There’s a history and pattern of disenfranchising African American communities” at the polls, he said.
For Hawkins, the state representative in Durham, “The biggest thing we are concerned about is voter suppression.”
“We are literally fighting for the soul of America. This is 2020, not 1950,” Hawkins said.
“The president has done a great job of muddying the waters and confusing people,” Mecklenburg County Commissioner Susan Rodriguez-McDowell told Spectrum News 1.
“The Latino community is not a monolith,” said Durham lawyer and Biden volunteer Yesenia Polanco-Galdamez. Polling shows Latino voters are not as solid a Democratic bloc as Black voters.
“It’s difficult to pigeon-hole this whole group,” she said.
She said she has been pushing social media and Facebook live events to help get out the vote for Biden. An immigration lawyer, Polanco told Spectrum News 1 that she hears a lot of concerns about the president’s immigration policies. “People are very shook,” she said.
Mecklenburg County Commissioner Susan Rodriguez-McDowell is one of only a handful of Latina elected officials in North Carolina.
She said Republican messaging accusing Democrats of promoting socialism has connected with some Latino voters, especially those with memories of repressive socialist regimes in their home countries like Cuban Americans.
“The Latino community has fallen prey to some of these talking points,” she said. She said Republicans were trying to foment fear with talk of socialism. “People need to be educated on these terms,” she said.
Haynie, the political science professor at Duke, said Democrats have been slow to reach Latino voters in this election. He said the Latino vote could be a “key demographic” to winning North Carolina, especially with polling at such close margins.
But there are some barriers for the campaigns, he said, and it’s not just about having Spanish-language volunteers and staff.
“It’s important to get face-to-face contact,” Haynie said, “but that’s difficult during this pandemic.” Florida and North Carolina, maybe even Georgia and Texas, could swing to the Democrats this year if they can effectively convince enough Latino voters to go to the polls for Biden.
“The strategy has to be to turn out Black and Latino voters,” he said.
The Biden campaign Thursday announced a slew of new hires to help reach out to Black and Latino voters.
“Far too often, communities of color are overlooked or taken for granted when in fact, they have the power to decide this election,” said longtime North Carolina Rep. G.K. Butterfield.
“With today’s staffing announcement, Joe Biden and his team have made it clear that they are committed to reaching every single voter in the state, with a concerted effort to engage those who have historically been shut out of our voting process. North Carolina is in play this November, and the Biden campaign is playing to win.”
Those new additions include Crystal Cavalier-Keck, a member of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation in Burlington, to lead outreach to tribal communities, Elke Millan as a new director for Latino engagement, and Durham pastor Rev. Jerome Washington as director of faith outreach.
“For Democrats, the path to victory runs through the Tar Heel state and we are not taking a single voter or vote for granted. We are expanding our staff to ensure that we reach voters in every corner of North Carolina,” Biden campaign North Carolina director L.T. McCrimmon said in a statement.
“This year’s election is unconventional, but it is the most consequential election of our lifetime,” McCrimmon said.
Both campaigns and political action groups from across the spectrum have been flooding North Carolina with advertisements.
Two new ads from the Biden campaign are staged in 360 Barbershop, a Black-owned barbershop in Durham.
Hawkins, Mitchell, and other Black men sit socially distanced and wearing masks around the shop and talk about the importance of this year’s presidential election and why they are voting for Biden.
“You cannot sit on the sidelines, you’ve got to get in the game,” Hawkins says to end one of the 30-second advertisements, calling on people to vote for Biden and Harris.
“Every voter wants to feel like you’re talking to them,” Hawkins said in a phone interview.
“Black and brown voters need to see themselves,” he said.
Both advertisements will run digitally and on television statewide, and one will be used nationally as part of the Biden campaign’s efforts to reach Black voters.