New Harris ad aims to win over Black men in Pennsylvania

If you’re a man in the Philadelphia area who’s inclined to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris but still not entirely sold on the idea, her team hopes you’ll listen to Duke, a Southwest Philadelphia resident and star of “She Can Do It,” a 30-second ad that begins airing on broadcast and cable television stations in the Philadelphia area on Thursday.

Sitting on a stoop, Duke tells someone off camera, “When I look at Kamala, I look at my aunt. I mean, we’ve got this Black lady, strong, who stands on business, who means what she says, is relatable. I see the empathy, that’s just, like, in their heart, the nature of a female.”

As footage of Harris flashes on screen, he adds: “She shows a lot of empathy when she speaks. Her actions — Kamala’s strong, she’s powerful. She stern, she means everything that she says. This November, I’m standing with Kamala.”

The ad is set to air during local broadcasts of Philadelphia 76ers NBA basketball games, and during local cable ad breaks during TNT coverage of NBA games and its popular “Inside the NBA” pregame show, as well as on networks popular with Black viewers, including BET, OWN, and VH1. The ad is part of an ongoing $370 million national ad campaign that stretches from Labor Day to Election Day.

The message is clearly tailored to reach Black men in Pennsylvania — and any other man who may be wary of supporting a woman as the next president. (The Harris campaign officially calls them “persuadable voters.”) The spot comes as Harris trails former President Donald Trump among men by double digits in some recent polls and amid signs he’s chipping away at traditionally strong support for the Democratic Party among Black voters. Failure to sustain high levels of minority voter support in Pennsylvania could cost Harris the state if she can’t make up those losses with other groups.

But in a nod to the realities of modern media consumption and political advertising, the ad first surfaced on streaming media. During the Fox telecast of the Philadelphia Eagles – New York Giants NFL game last Sunday, certain viewers streaming the game on Hulu spotted the message — an example of how digital video advertising can be targeted, in this case to male viewers watching the game in the Philadelphia area. That’s how a traveling CBS News correspondent first spotted the ad — watching the game on the Hulu app Sunday afternoon while riding a train into Philadelphia.