Transcript
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Biden is in Philadelphia today holding a rally that is designed to launch his campaign's summer-long effort to reach out to Black voters. They are traditionally a big part of the Democratic Party coalition, although polls this year show softening support. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith has been talking with voters in eastern North Carolina.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Kimberly Hardy is the second vice chair of her state's Democratic Party. And she's traveling all over North Carolina to rural areas with large Black populations, trying to answer this one question.
KIMBERLY HARDY: Why are Black folks not voting right now in this county?
KEITH: Sagging turnout among Black voters is a real challenge facing Democrats. On her 30-county listening tour, Hardy has heard from a lot of people who feel like their votes don't really matter, that the system doesn't work for them. At Head Changerz, a barbershop in the community of Rocky Mount, Hardy starts off with that question - why aren't folks voting?
HARDY: There's no wrong answer. I want to hear anything.
KEITH: Barber Cherita Evans tells Hardy elections come and go and not much changes, even the historic election of former-President Barack Obama.
CHERITA EVANS: I just was happy we had a Black president. He had swag. He looked good.
KEITH: But beyond that...
EVANS: Once the emotionalism is gone, you still feel stuck. You still feel like, this is hard.
KEITH: Christian Pounds, a college student, is in her chair getting his hair trimmed. Neither of them are all that enthusiastic about the election.
EVANS: I don't like Trump. I think he a idiot.
CHRISTIAN POUNDS: I don't like Biden either.
KEITH: Hardy wants to know more.
HARDY: Tell me why you don't like Trump, and tell me why you don't like Biden.
POUNDS: I don't know. I just feel like we just got to choose the lesser evil, whatever we think the lesser evil is.
KEITH: A Biden campaign ad comes on the shop's muted TV, but Hardy is already pressing his case, talking up Biden's accomplishments - the infrastructure bill, capping insulin prices, first woman of color as vice president. So are they planning to vote in November? Evans doesn't hesitate. She's a one-issue voter this year, and that issue is abortion.
EVANS: I'm voting for Biden because I don't want no man telling me what to do with my body. That's the only reason why.
KEITH: Pounds, the college student, says he'll probably vote for Biden, too. Hardy has been having a lot of conversations like this.
HARDY: Which means it's real - right? - because I'm not just hearing it from one or two people. I'm hearing it from folks all over the place, that it feels like nothing changes when they vote. And so it does make people say, is anyone listening?
KEITH: The Biden campaign is well aware that it has work to do with Black voters. In a memo released earlier this month, a campaign adviser outlined all the ways the Biden reelect is investing early. That includes opening campaign offices like this one in Rocky Mount.
JAIME HARRISON: You are powerful here in North Carolina. You are now a battleground state.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Right. That's right.
KEITH: Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison is here to rally the volunteers. He tells me he's skeptical that Black voters are moving in a big way towards former-President Donald Trump. But he is clear-eyed about how close this election is going to be.
HARRISON: You can never take any campaign for granted. You got to go out there, and you got to make your case. And I can tell you on the Democratic side, we're doing the work. We're opening the offices.
KEITH: This work is happening up and down the ballot. In the neighboring community of Wilson, Dante Pittman is running for state House. The seat flipped from Democratic to Republican two years ago in large part because of a collapse in turnout among Black voters.
DANTE PITTMAN: What happened is folks did not feel as though they had a reason to come out and vote. They weren't motivated to come out to the polls, and that's why we saw the change that we did.
KEITH: Now he's trying to change it back. I follow along as Pittman visits Style Masters, the barbershop he went to as a child.
PITTMAN: This is C.J, too. So C.J. was the one that used to cut my hair.
CJ WARD: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
KEITH: But when the conversation turns to national politics, C.J. Ward, who voted for Biden in 2020, says he's planning to vote for Trump.
WARD: I know Trump - you know, he has a little wild side to him, but he did try to help out business owners - you know what I mean? - you know, but that's just how I feel.
KEITH: Pittman and the other barbers in the shop don't contain their surprise. Pittman is going to keep having these conversations in his community about things like schools and economic development. And he says if voters show up for him, it could help higher up the ticket as well.
PITTMAN: It's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure, because we know we have got to do our job here and that it has effects for the governor's race. It has effects for the presidential race.
KEITH: Polls show Biden trailing in North Carolina significantly now. But in 2020, Trump won the state by about 74,000 votes. And Democrats here are rallying behind the idea that it's a difference of fewer than 50 votes per precinct.
Tamara Keith, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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