On Politics: The view of the election from one Philly barbershop
The view of the election from one Philly barbershop
The latest, with 21 days to go
Nicolas O'Rourke is no fan of former President Donald Trump, but he wanted to talk about him. A Philadelphia city councilor and a member of the progressive Working Families Party, O'Rourke was on his feet at the HairAfter Barber Lounge, a freshly renovated barbershop illuminated by ring lights that glinted off shiny new chairs. It was Friday night, and O'Rourke had gathered about a dozen Black men for a round-table discussion aimed less at changing their minds than it was at hearing them out. "Are there any issues," O'Rourke asked, "that you think Trump is mostly right about, compared to who he's up against?" The owner of the shop spoke up first. "He's right about a lot compared to Kamala," Bud Harrod, 37, said, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris before listing off the areas of agreement he saw between himself and Trump: immigration, taxes and the belief that abortion rules should be set by the states. "I think he's right about her not necessarily having done enough to earn the position," said Harrod, who then suggested that the dire warnings Democrats have made about a second Trump administration were exaggerated. "Regardless of what they say about him, we had been under his presidency for four years, and we didn't die," Harrod said. Harrod told me that he has not voted in a presidential election since he cast a ballot for Barack Obama, then a senator from Illinois, in 2008. He is thinking about voting this time, though — and he's leaning toward Trump. Three weeks away from the election, the potential strength Trump has shown with Black men like Harrod has left Democrats deeply alarmed. In recent days, Harris has been making her case to Black men with a whirlwind of media appearances, a pair of television ads and the release of an economic plan aimed directly at them. Far from the pomp of a big campaign event, the round-table talk, part of which I was invited to sit in on, offered a glimpse of her challenges — and of the under-the-radar organizing being done to turn things around. "For me, this is a starter for a longer conversation, because for so long, Black men feel like they've been ignored by the system," said Andre Carroll, a newly elected Democratic state representative who helped organize the event. "As long as you've got people talking, there is an opportunity to move the needle." Shifting supportHarris is on track to win an overwhelming majority of Black voters, but a recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that her support among Black men is still about 15 percentage points behind President Biden's in 2020. The poll found she had the support of 70 percent of Black men, while Trump drew the support of about 20 percent. O'Rourke supports Harris, and his party says it has so far knocked on a quarter of a million doors in Pennsylvania in an effort to turn out low-to-mid-propensity voters for her and other Democrats down the ticket. Here, though, he mostly wanted to listen to men he believed were too often left out of the process. "I think that Black men have been taken for granted and they know that. We have to not do that anymore," O'Rourke said. "We have to actually engage them, have conversations." Several of the men there told me they planned to back Harris, and of the undecided voters, four told me they were at least leaning toward Trump. The discussion laid bare some of the obstacles Harris faces in trying to narrow the gender gap, which also exists among voters in other demographic groups, including doubts about a woman as president from voters who have never seen one before. At times, O'Rourke, Carroll and others pushed back when concerns about Harris's gender spilled out into the open. Tobie Matheny, 49, suggested there could be more problems on the global stage with a woman president than a man. "I'm not trying to say, because she's a female, but ——" Matheny said, before O'Rourke interrupted him. "Are you not trying to say that, or is that exactly what you're saying?" O'Rourke asked. Harrod, the barber, suggested Trump would be more respected than Harris would around the world. "Sometimes you get respect through fear," he said, before others pointed out that it has, thus far, been exclusively male presidents who have dragged the United States into war. Several of the men also voiced their support for Trump's hard-line immigration policies. "This isn't about them being here. This is about, we've been here for a long time and the resources that they give them, they don't give us," Matheny said. Chris Davis, 31, a nonprofit employee who had initially planned to sit the election out because of his concerns about the Biden administration's handling of the conflict in Gaza, had decided to vote for Harris because of his concerns about Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint that was created in part by several Trump allies. "It's not an earned vote, it's more of an avoidance vote — I just want to stop what could happen," Davis said. Hakeem Butler, 45, said he would vote for Harris because "she's a better option than we have." Matheny, like Harrod, had not completely decided on his vote, although he was leaning toward Trump. Carroll said he was not sure that the disaffection expressed at the barbershop and elsewhere would automatically translate into a surge of support for Trump. "I don't hear Trump supporters — I hear people disengaging with the political process," he said. "It's a sign we've got to continue to have these conversations." Keeping the conversation goingAfter the event, Carroll lingered to talk with Meshach Anderson, an assistant at the barbershop. He had heard Anderson, 22, mention his new daughter. Carroll told him about Harris's plan to offer parents of newborn babies a $6,000 tax credit, and asked for his phone number so they could talk again. Before Anderson left, I asked him if Carroll had convinced him. "To vote for Kamala? No," Anderson said with a laugh. But, he said, "He did open my eyes to the fact that you do vote on multiple issues." Anderson said he had not voted in 2020 because he didn't see a point. But he does now. "I mostly just want change," he said. The candidate he thinks has a track record of change, he said, is Trump.
Trump leaves the out-loud part quietUsually, people who go to Donald Trump's events can expect to hear up to two hours of unfiltered and unstructured commentary on everything from his increasingly dark claims about "the enemy within" to his rambling thoughts on sharks or the fictional cannibal Hannibal Lecter. For about a half-hour on Monday night, though, Trump chose to utter something more unusual: almost nothing at all. After a couple of his supporters had medical emergencies, Trump decided simply to play some of his favorite songs instead of returning to the political program. "Let's not do any more questions. Let's just listen to music," he said. "Let's make it into a music ——. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?" My colleague Michael Gold described the surreal scene like so: He bobbed his head through the Village People's "Y.M.C.A.," his usual closing song. He swayed soberly to Rufus Wainwright's version of "Hallelujah," watched a Sinead O'Connor video, rocked along to Elvis, watched the crowd during "Rich Men North of Richmond" and then, finally, left the stage to shake hands on his way out during one last song. Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota danced along gamely, if awkwardly. The voters arrayed onstage with Trump seemed unsure of what to do; at one point, a couple of them could be seen checking their phones. Trump himself seemed surprised that more people didn't leave when the music began. It was a reminder that, for many of his supporters, Trump's rallies have always been more about the spectacle of seeing him onstage, rather than what he actually says. But it also said a lot about the candidate himself. Campaign operatives like to say that the most valuable asset in an election is a candidate's time. And, with three weeks to go in a race that appears tied, he decided to spend half an hour doing nothing but swaying to the music. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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