VICE PRES. KAMALA HARRIS
IS VP HARRIS PRES. BIDEN’S
“SECRET WEAPON” IN NC?
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris made her fifth visit to North Carolina this year, and thirteenth to the state since taking office in 2021. The occasion was an address on economic opportunity and advancement for African Americans, and the place was Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte.
“I believe very strongly that the accomplishments of our administration — such as creating 15 million new jobs [overall]; creating over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs; the historic low unemployment, particularly for the Black community, are very important. Critically important,” Harris said, with fellow Democrats Gov. Roy Cooper, Mayor Vi Lyles, and actor Michael Ealy, among others, in attendance.
Harris reminded the audience of the Biden - Harris Administration’s success thus far for the Black community - creating 2.6 million jobs for African Americans: overseeing the lowest Black unemployment rate in U.S. history; the fastest creation of black-owned businesses in thirty years; increasing wealth for Black families, and more federal contracts for minority-owned businesses.
“I’m very aware that, you know, we can do all this good stuff in Washington, D.C.,” Harris continued, “ but if it doesn’t hit the streets, it doesn’t matter.”
There’s a reason why VP Harris, the first black woman ever to serve in the post, has made so many visits to the Tar Heel State, political observers say.
She’s proven to be effective in the Biden Administration’s outreach to North Carolina’s African American community in cities like Charlotte, Raleigh and Durham, three of the state’s largest cities with considerable African American communities.
And make no mistake, those observers note, if the Biden-Harris campaign intends to win North Carolina and its 16 Electoral College votes - one of six critical battleground states in the upcoming November 5th presidential election - then winning North Carolina’s loyal Black Democratic voting base will be key.
If that happens, it would be the first time since Barack Obama, the last Democrat to win the state, did so in 2008.
Several weeks ago, the Biden -Harris Campaign launched “Black Voters for Biden - Harris", which, according to National Public Radio, is described by the campaign as “…a summer of mobilization, to earn votes and not take them for granted.”
That effort is hoping to maximize Black voter turnout in rural counties, where African Americans tend to be as conservative as their white counterparts. The Biden - Harris campaign is also praying that a significant number of Black voters don’t sit out this election, or worse yet, vote for Trump, as some press reports are predicting.
Per recent polls, just five months until Election Day, show Republican former Pres. Donald Trump currently leads Pres. Biden by at least five points statewide, according to East Carolina University’s Center for Survey Research. Whether that is enough time to energize North Carolina’s African-American vote - even with a polarizing governor’s race between a controversial Black Republican and a white Jewish Democrat leading the ballot - is yet to be seen.
Democratic organizers are hoping fresh efforts to turnout the Black vote; in concert with new get-out-the-vote efforts in the state’s conservative rural areas; population growth in North Carolina’s bluest counties and hopes that the Republican Party’s top of the ticket “bombthrowing” conservative culture warrior candidates will turn off many North Carolina voters, will be the keys to victory in November.
Trump narrowly won the state in 2020 by 75,000 votes.
According to a survey by Politico/Morning Consult, Harris has a 67 percent favorability rating nationally with Black voters, compared to 63 percent for her boss, Pres. Biden.
Per North Carolina, VP Harris has helped open at least one of ten Biden-Harris campaign field offices across the state, while the Trump campaign has yet to open its first.
“Elections matter,” Harris told supporters in Charlotte last March. “Organizing matters. Showing up matters. Remembering the strength and power of our voice matters.”
“She’s one of the administration’s best spokespeople to the Black community,” Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons, who once served as Harris’s communications director, told The Hill. “The president has been making the case to the Black community as well, but obviously the VP has a different kind of appeal.”
-30-
HOW LEGISLATIVE REPUBLICANS
ARE HELPING MARK ROBINSON
WIN THE RACE FOR GOVERNOR
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
If he hasn’t done so by the time you read this story, Gov. Roy Cooper is soon expected to veto House Bill 237, that was ratified by the state House last week, which, among other things, amended “…campaign finance laws regarding federal political committees and political organizations”
In simpler language, according to many election campaign observers, HB 237 changed the rules for raising money in the middle of the 2024 race for governor to help Republican Mark Robinson.
It’s no secret that the NC Republican Party has been looking for ways to match the impressive $19 million campaign first quarter war chest of Democratic gubernatorial rival Josh Stein.
It’s one of the reasons why the Stein campaign has been able to buy tons of television advertising time slamming Robinson on his stands against a woman’s right to choose.
Robinson has not been able to respond with his own television ads.
According to published reports, Robinson, the black Republican Lt. Governor, has only been able to raise $11 million. Part of the problem has been, purportedly, that many of the big billionaire donors to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign don’t want to be known to have contributed to Robinson, who has a documented history of posting and saying bigoted remarks about LBGTQ+ people, Jews, Blacks and others
The Republican-led state House on June 11th, over the strenuous objections of their Democratic colleagues, passed HB 237, which originally was only supposed to deal with the legality of mask wearing in North Carolina.
But after a conference with Senate conferees, the campaign finance language was added to the measure, passed by Senate Republicans on June 6th, and then House Republicans last week.
In effect, hard to trace so-called “dark money’ can now be funneled into Robinson’s campaign from out-of-state donors through various channels. Robinson’s war chest could now explode by tens of millions of dollars, and election observers say one would be hard pressed to figure out where the money actually came from.
Needless to say, Democrats were not pleased with the Trojan Horse aspect of the bill, which now can become law if the legislature’s Republican supermajority overcomes an expected veto from Governor Cooper.
Bob Hall, a nonpartisan election observer and former executive director of Democracy NC wrote, “ HB 237 comes to [Mark Robinson’s] rescue by legalizing a money laundering scheme. An individual can give, say, $500,000 to a federal 527 committee (the Republican Governors Association is one), and it can then donate $500,000 to an APC or a North Carolina party in its own name, without revealing the money’s true source. This will help Robinson’s campaign solicit donations from super-rich donors who don’t want to be publicly tied to his rhetoric.”
Hall continued. “It also allows a legislative leader like Senator Phil Berger to funnel big money from, say, gambling donors through a 527 into his APC to benefit GOP candidates. A partisan arms race in creating 527s and laundering money could result.”
Again, Gov. Cooper has already indicated that he doesn’t like this bill, and is expected to veto it before its ten-day deadline.
Then it would be up to Republicans in both houses of the NC General Assembly to attempt to override the governor’s veto once all members are present and accounted for.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment