Black voters react to Biden’s exit and Harris’ 2024 presidential bid

At brunch Sunday near Seattle, April Berg and her girlfriends’ cellphones simultaneously began to ping. 

“We thought somebody had died,” she said.

Rather, word had spread that President Joe Biden had pulled out of the presidential race. Moments later, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him as the Democratic nominee. Berg and her friends’ normal 90-minute gathering lasted almost four hours. 

“It generated so much spicy conversation,” said Berg, who is Black, a Democrat and a Washington state House representative.

Berg and millions of Black voters were pivotal to Biden’s victory in 2020, especially in key swing states like Georgia. In his 2020 victory speech, Biden thanked Black voters and said he would do right by them. Throughout his presidency, Biden has touted his administration’s accomplishments, like reducing child poverty, which particularly affects Black families, and appointing Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. 

But while a majority of Black voters continued to back Biden, Black support for him had sagged overall. Now that he is no longer seeking re-election, Black people across the country interviewed by NBC News expressed various reactions to Biden’s decision, from elation to disappointment to ambivalence. But they agreed that Biden had several meaningful accomplishments in office and that Harris would be a worthy choice to take his place at the top of the ticket. 

Biden’s decision pleased Berg and the brunch crowd because they now see a path to defeating Republican nominee Donald Trump. 

With the pandemic and racial justice protests in 2020, Biden was “the right man at the right moment,” Berg said. “And then he brought on Kamala Harris as his VP and at the announcement, she entered to Mary J. Blige’s song ‘Working.’ I think most Black women, like me, felt very seen in that moment. And Joe Biden created that moment.”

She and her friends were content with Biden’s dropping out, she said, but not solely because of his meandering debate performance on June 27. “I don’t know that I could point to one specific thing that I would say, ‘Oh, he needed to get out.’ I just think overall, things had just changed after that night.”

Leslie Neland, an entrepreneur in Atlanta, said defeating Trump became more urgent when her 23-year-old son shared recently that he had been “afraid and overly concerned” when Trump was president. “I deal with racism and move on. But when it impacts my son, it heightened for me the fact that this man cannot be president again,” Neland said. 

“Joe Biden has done a wonderful job for the country,” she added, citing Biden’s policies like the Child Tax Credit, which cut Black child poverty, and appointing more Black woman to be federal judges (38, including Brown Jackson) than any other president.

“And so much more, including amazing support of HBCUs and pulling us through Covid after Trump. So I’m a fan of Joe Biden,” Neland added. “It bothers me that so many Black people seem to not realize all that he has done.” 

Maurice Hawkins, a political volunteer in Norfolk, Virginia, said some Black people were disenchanted with Biden because “we are all exhausted by systemic racism. No one man can change hearts and minds. But Biden changed policies that benefit Black folks and set us on a promising path.” 

Biden’s rough debate performance in June led to mounting calls from Democratic figures for him to step aside. Christine Beatty, a nonprofit political consultant in Detroit, said it created a contentious situation. 

“I think he was forced out, and I’m not happy about that,” Beatty said. “I think he succumbed to the pressure. The man tackled issues for the country, which are our issues. He brought down unemployment; jobs are our issues too, right? He saw us through the Covid crisis; that was our issue, too. He brought the economy back. That’s our issue, too. There’s no separation. The most critical issues in this country affect us, and they affect us the worst. So, he did a fantastic job. And he would have continued doing so.”

Beyond the 59 Black federal judges he nominated overall (men and women), Hawkins also noted Biden’s other notable appointments, including Linda Thomas-Greenfield as the ambassador to the United Nations and Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense. 

“He has one of the most diverse Cabinets in the history of the American presidency. And on policy, he’s been fantastic,” Hawkins said. A dedicated volunteer for the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020, Hawkins said he was “saddened” and “disappointed” to see Biden drop out.

But about a half-hour later, he learned Biden had endorsed Harris, and “that uncertainty I had moved toward certainty and then excitement for the possibility of our country electing our first woman president, first African American woman president, first woman of Southeast Asian descent.”

“So, you can’t be happy to see someone like him go away,” Hawkins said. “But Kamala Harris is the next best thing.”

Neland, the entrepreneur in Atlanta, agreed with Biden’s decision to back Harris “because Kamala can beat Trump and that’s the No. 1 goal — not letting him back in power. Kamala Harris is capable and she’s going to have the right people around her, not just like a one woman show.” 

Beatty, who like Harris, is a Howard University graduate, said the vice president is the logical choice to continue Biden’s work. 

“Bringing in another candidate in, at this late time would cause way too much division within the Democratic Party,” she said. “You overstep the Black VP? You’re going to have to make a case, and I don’t think there’s a case to be made. And as we know, Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party. When it’s time to turn out and produce, that’s what we do.”

That path can be paved by Harris, said William Ratcliff, a retired project manager in suburban Phoenix, who also took issue with Biden seemingly being forced out. 

“But, I see the strategy,” he said. “Kamala is younger, a fighter, smart and can energize the base, which, if we’re being honest, was pretty blah before now.” 

That energy, he said, is necessary to defeat Trump. 

“Because he’s such a threat to democracy and decency, something had to happen to get us on a path to victory,” Ratcliff said. “Joe Biden did his job and did it well. Now it’s up to the Democratic Party to throw their support behind Vice President Harris. If we finally come together as a party, we will be celebrating in November — and not crying.”

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