Unlike Obama, Harris Stays Away From Race, Gender in Campaign Rally

Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris rallies with supporters at the Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum on the campus of East Carolina University on October 13, 2024 in Greenville, North Carolina. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

(The Center Square) – Three days after controversial race and gender comments by former President Barack Obama, presidential candidate Kamala Harris made multiple appearances Sunday in a North Carolina county Joe Biden won by 9.5% four years ago.

The vice president didn’t specifically appeal to Black males, as Obama did at a Harris campaign office on Thursday. She stayed on message and instead talked primarily to the “middle class” and “working people,” never once tying a voting bloc to race or gender.

The closest was her campaign point for reproductive freedom.

“Your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power,” Harris said in reminding those attending of early in-person voting beginning Thursday. Election Day is 23 days away.

Harris overnighted in the state, on Saturday lending a hand on a supply line sending aid to Hurricane Helene victims in the mountains, and Sunday attending services and stepping into the pulpit at Koinonia Christian Center Church in Greenville. Her late-afternoon rally was on the campus of East Carolina University in Minges Coliseum, an arena with basketball capacity of 8,000 and considerably cordoned off into one end of the venue.

Pitt County was a 53.96%-44.51% win for the challenger Biden against incumbent Republican President Donald Trump in 2020, taking more than 47,000 of 87,573 votes. It was one of 10 counties, and southern-most sans one, east of Interstate 95 he captured. The Maine to Florida connector is recognized as a bit of a divider for the state, more populous areas being toward the western two-thirds and plenty of rural socioeconomic challenges from it to the Atlantic Ocean.

Harris, No. 2 in charge of the Biden administration, said her presidential ticket with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz “is the underdog.” She didn't need to win a primary en route to accepting nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Polling nationally and in North Carolina is a toss-up, with Harris slightly ahead in RealClear Politics national analysis and behind in the battleground state.

Democrats have been at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for 12 of the last 16 years.

Harris kept her message firmly pointed at Trump, repeatedly tying him with the Project 2025 idea he says he has no part in crafting. Obama, on the other hand, took his shot at a demographic traditionally favorable to Democrats that is arguably losing reliability.

The former president was at a Harris campaign office in Pittsburgh. According to CNN, Obama said energy for Harris is lacking and “seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”

And, speaking of her opponent in Trump, Obama said, “You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.

“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses. I’ve got a problem with that. Because part of it makes me think – and I’m speaking to men directly – part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

Even when Biden had gone through the primary as the candidate for Democrats, Harris tried to lure Black men to vote for the ticket.

Harris, one week shy of her 60th birthday and celebrating her husband Doug Emhoff’s 60th on Sunday as she campaigned, has said she would not have done anything different than Biden. Her campaign slogan is to chart “a new way forward.”

Interestingly, she led off and hammered away using the early summer's Republican talking points – high costs facing Americans, keeping the nation secure, and personal health of the party’s leader. Those, in fact, were central to Trump leading Biden significantly in polling until he quit the race July 21.

Harris infamously went more than a month without doing public interviews or question-and-answer press conferences. She also chastised Trump for that and refusing a second debate with her, when in fact he proposed three in August and the Harris campaign accepted one.

Trump debated Biden on June 27, signaling the beginning of the end for the nation’s 46th president.

North Carolina is one of seven consensus battleground states that collectively pivot 93 electoral college votes. Few prognosticators believe either candidate can win without the state or Pennsylvania, and perhaps need to take both – adding even more intrigue to Obama’s comments.

Pennsylvania has 19 electoral college votes, North Carolina and Georgia 16 each, Michigan 15, Arizona 11, Wisconsin 10 and Nevada six.

In 2020, Trump won North Carolina 49.9%-48.6% over the ticket of Biden and Harris. In 2016, Trump won the state 49.8%-46.2% over the ticket of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. Trump outperformed the September and October polls each time.

Republicans own an unmistakable 14-cycle pattern in presidential elections. Since Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson carried North Carolina and won the presidency in 1964, only Democrats Jimmy Carter (1976) and Obama (2008) have prevailed. Respectively four years later for each, they lost to Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney.