Inside the efforts to reach young Black men who might stay home instead of voting

By Arit John, CNN

Philadelphia (CNN) — Dozens of Black motorcyclists drove through north and west Philadelphia over the weekend with a simple message for Black men: Go vote.

The ride – a joint effort between Black Men Vote, Black Riders Vote and other local organizations – was one of several nonpartisan events held across the city in a bid to boost registration ahead of a Monday deadline and drive turnout ahead of Election Day, particularly in lower income communities where turnout tends to lag. 

“Hopefully, they see us riding, they look up and see Black men and women on motorcycles, and they think, ‘If they can vote, maybe I should reconsider it as well,’” said Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler of the Mother Bethel AME Church, the head of the biking group. “People don’t think that Black bikers talk about voting, but when we sit around together and we hang out people are talking about the election, people are talking about issues.”

In a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 6-to-1 and campaign signs for the vice president are sprinkled throughout residential neighborhoods, Kamala Harris’ challenge isn’t winning. The question is whether enough of her backers here, and in other Democratic strongholds like Pittsburgh, will show up in strong enough numbers to help mitigate former President Donald Trump’s support in the rural parts of the state.

Younger Black men have received increased attention from the Harris campaign in recent days. Last week Harris unveiled an agenda for Black men, stressing parts of her platform that would specifically benefit those voters, and went on a media blitz that included interviews with the Shade Room and Charlamagne tha God.

Elected officials and nonpartisan voter engagement groups have also focused in on to young Black men, amid concerns that a significant number will decide to stay home. The efforts have focused on stressing the importance of voting but also reducing the barriers and misinformation around how to vote and who is eligible.

Pushing back on apathy and misinformation

Some would-be voters are harder to reach than others.

The Black bikers’ ride ended in West Philadelphia’s Container Village, an outdoor shopping center where minority-owned small businesses operate out of refurbished shipping containers.

Tyjuan Harris of Custom Creations, a print shop located in the center, heard the bikes pull in but didn’t know they were encouraging voting. While the 42-year-old Philadelphia resident was the target audience, the message likely wouldn’t have resonated.

Tyjuan Harris told CNN he has no interest in following politics. The last time he voted, he said, was likely 20 years ago, when he cast a ballot for former Vice President Al Gore at the insistence of his mother. He said he would never make the “error” of allowing himself to be pressured into voting in an election he hadn’t researched again.

“I do my own thing, I make my own way,” Harris said. “America’s going to be America, no matter who’s in the White House.”

Joe Paul, the executive director of Black Men Vote, said the group frames voting as not just a matter of civic responsibility, but a way to voice their power and shape their communities. But a combination of mistrust of government and general disillusionment – combined with structural hurdles such as voter ID laws and voter roll purges – remains.

Since January, Black Men Vote has been reaching out to its target audience in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the group says it has registered more than 100,000 Black men to vote. The organization focuses on reaching men where they are – at basketball courts, gyms, churches and through radio and social media advertising. Black Men Vote has also partnered with barbers, who they’ve trained as voting ambassadors to talk to clients about civic engagement.

Paul rejected the notion, laid out by former President Barack Obama and others, that some Black men would reject Harris because of her gender or sit out the election.

“I don’t see, and we’re not hearing, what is being amplified out there that Black men won’t vote for Kamala Harris because she’s a woman, or that Black men will vote for Trump more than they’ll vote for Kamala Harris, or that Black men will choose to vote the couch versus anything else,” he said. “We’ll see historic turnout among Black men.”

The fight for low propensity voters

Both parties will try to boost their numbers in Philadelphia, particularly with low propensity voters. In 2020, Joe Biden won the state by 80,000 votes. Ninety-two percent of Black voters in the state backed the president, including 89% of Black men and 94% of Black women, according to CNN exit polls. In Philadelphia, which is 40% Black, Biden won 81% of the vote.

While Trump was able to secure 24,000 more votes in Philadelphia in 2020 compared to 2016, Biden improved on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s margins as well. Overall, 66% of Philadelphia’s 1.1 million registered voters turned out in 2020, the city’s highest voter turnout since 1984.

The Trump campaign believes that, among low propensity voters, its best bets are voters who skew younger, less White and less engaged with politics than the general electorate, a Trump campaign official told CNN. The campaign, boosted by outside groups, has sought to tap into some voters’ displeasure with the current economy or direction of the country and tie that to Harris. 

And in a change from 2020, the Trump campaign has also guided voters towards options to cast their ballot beyond voting in-person on Election Day.

“We refer to it as demystifying the process for them,” the Trump campaign official said. “Demystifying where they fit into the electorate and why their voice matters, and demystifying how to actually cast a vote and how easy it is to cast a vote with all of the methods they have available to them.”

In 2020, Trump said during a debate that “bad things happen in Philadelphia” after members of the public were blocked from observing in satellite election offices, where voters can register and request and submit mail ballots ahead of Election Day. Officials blocked the observers because the spaces were not polling places and the Trump campaign did not yet have approved poll watchers.

The Harris campaign has pointed to its ground game advantages in the city – including field offices aimed at reaching voters in predominantly Black neighborhoods like Germantown, relationships with surrogates who have deep ties to their communities, and outreach events in churches, barber shops and beauty salons. The campaign hopes to see turnout in the city match the 2020 result.

“We get to the mid 60s, the math becomes very difficult for the other side,” said a senior advisor to the Harris campaign in Pennsylvania. “We can obtain that because we are having conversations in places in the city that normally don’t have conversation.”

Many voter engagement efforts are focused on reducing the structural hurdles that prevent people from casting ballots, including a lack of information about their voting rights and ways to vote, lack of access to polling places or policies like voter ID laws and voter roll purges.

Philadelphia County, which covers the city, has also sought to make it easier to vote. Though Pennsylvania doesn’t have in-person early voting, the city designated 11 permanent satellite election offices. Several voter engagement events, including a recent block party headlined by Philadelphia native DJ Jazzy Jeff, have been held outside election offices.

“People believe that they don’t count, and my message is pretty simple: It’s a self-empowerment that you still count, that you still have power,” said Philadelphia Commissioner Omar Sabir.

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