News Americas, New York, NY, Thursday. October 17, 2024: As US Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign continues its push to appeal to black voters, particularly black men, concerns have surfaced about limited spending on media outlets and businesses owned by Black and Caribbean immigrants. Despite raising over $1 billion to date, reports indicate that the Harris campaign has done little to invest in minority-owned retailers, a move that is disappointing this key demographic as the election nears.
Harris, whose mother is Indian and father Jamaican, has repeatedly stressed the importance of prioritizing spending with minority-owned firms. However, a report by NOTUS, a non-profit news agency, suggests that her campaign has disproportionately favored white-owned retailers. While Harris has reportedly directed her team to focus on black-owned businesses, NOTUS cited sources as saying that this directive has not been consistently followed.
Senior deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks has faced criticism for his handling of the budget, dismissing proposals related to Black’s outreach efforts, NOTUS reported. Some campaign insiders have accused Fulks of downplaying the importance of working with black-owned firms, the article said. Instead, he has been said to justify using white-owned companies with black collaborators on their projects — an approach that has only intensified frustrations.
The campaign has also made a small $1.5 million advertising deal with the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), which represents over 200 black-owned newspapers and media outlets, including those serving Caribbean immigrant communities.
The publisher of a major Caribbean-owned newspaper based in Florida told News Americas that they have received zero ads from the campaign and have seen none in any other Caribbean media. News Americas, Black Immigrant Daily, which serves the black Caribbean and Latino immigrant communities in the U.S., also did not receive advertising. No Harris campaign ads were also found in other online Caribbean publications, including the Haitian Times, South Florida Caribbean, Jamaicans.com, Everybody’s Magazine, Caribbean Life, Caribbean Weekly or Carib News.
In 2020, the Biden-Harris campaign spent about $70 million on paid media targeting black audiences. Consultants predict the Harris campaign will spend significantly less this cycle.
Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, reportedly expressed his frustration during an August phone call with the Harris campaign. Johnson, along with other black leaders, questioned why minority-owned political firms, which have historically been integral to Democratic campaigns, were being overlooked despite record campaign fundraising.
“If black voters are the base, it should be black retailers telling the story,” one call attendee told NOTUS. However, despite efforts to raise the issue, many left the conversation without a clear solution. Johnson and other prominent leaders are now calling for greater transparency about how the campaign distributes its funds.
Support from black voters, which was key to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, has softened in 2024. A Howard University poll found that Harris’ support among black voters has fallen from 92% in 2020 to 82% this year . Even more troubling for the campaign is an NAACP poll showing that one in four black men under 50 now support Donald Trump.
This shift in voter sentiment has prompted calls from black operatives for the Harris campaign to allocate more resources to black-owned media and firms that understand how to mobilize this crucial voting bloc effectively. But with weeks to go before Nov. 5, it’s unclear how much of a difference it will make at this point.
Meanwhile, Caribbean American voters are showing strong support for Harris’ Caribbean roots, according to the latest poll by OF EVERYONEthe 47-year-old American Caribbean magazine. In its 12th presidential poll, conducted among subscribers in 36 US states, 92.5% said they plan to vote for Harris, while 7% said they would support Donald Trump in the next election.
The magazine’s presidential polls, which have been held since the 1980 election between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, aim to gauge voting intentions within the Caribbean American community, rather than predict the overall winner. For the 2024 election, subscribers were randomly selected and mailed questionnaires in the last week of August.
The survey focused on Caribbean Americans, defined as individuals and their descendants primarily from the Anglophone Caribbean and Haiti.
