Disha Williams drove all the way down from Columbia, South Carolina, on Thursday to sell T-shirts, buttons, and hats at the latest Kamala Harris rally in Clarkston, about 10 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.
The 40-year-old entrepreneur and her husband started their family printing company in 2008, the year Barack Obama’s likeness helped retail business owners across the country earn small fortunes peddling similar political apparel.
The melanated face on merchandise — often shaded in patriotic red, white, and blue or pan-African red, green, and Black — may have changed this year, but the marketing remains similar. Obama’s timeless “Yes We Can” slogan has been replaced with Harris’ “We Fight, We Win.”
The pop-up flea market scene that formed up the road from James R. Hallford Stadium in DeKalb County, where thousands gathered to support the trailblazing Democratic nominee and her pioneering predecessor, was all too familiar for Williams, who estimated she would make $5,000 that afternoon alone.
She said it’s been 16 years since sales have been this good.
“This is the biggest rally we’ve been to so far,” Williams told Capital B Atlanta. “We were here Saturday, also. But I think because Obama’s here, it’s like five times bigger.”
Democratic strategists have been hoping Harris can recapture the political magic Obama conjured during his unprecedented 2008 White House run, when young, Black and other nonwhite voters who don’t typically engage in politics cast ballots in battleground states in record numbers.
Obama received 95% of the Black vote in 2008, when the national Black turnout rate reached 65%, a milestone mark that hasn’t been eclipsed since. Research indicates Black voters cast ballots at higher rates when Black candidates are on the ballot.
Yet, while recent polling data shows Harris performing better than Joe Biden with Black voters this year, it also shows her thus far failing to match the same level of enthusiasm Obama achieved previously. Only about 74% of Black Georgians surveyed in the latest University of Georgia/Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, conducted in October, said they would vote for Harris if the election were held today.
Nearly 18% of Black respondents told pollsters they remain undecided less than a month before Election Day. Harris will need their help to put her over the top in a state where less than 12,000 votes decided the outcome of the last presidential election. And winning Georgia would all but assure Harris of a White House victory in November.
But Democrats hope enthusiastic Harris supporters like McDonough resident Maria Lumpkin can help bolster the vice president on Nov. 5. The 50-year-old Lumpkin, a fellow member of Harris’ Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., was decked out in pink and green apparel on Thursday as she and her companions waited in line to attend the rally.
Lumpkin rebuffed advanced voting data provided to Capital B Atlanta earlier this week showing lower turnout rates in southern Fulton County, where most of its Black population lives, when compared to the county’s north side, which includes its whiter, more affluent suburbs. Southern Fulton County turnout rates surged midway through the week, according to a Board of Elections official, who cautioned about the day-to-day fluctuating nature of early voting figures.
“I think that the south side of Atlanta is going to come out, and I think it’s going to be an unexpected turnout for the people that are naysayers and don’t believe that we’ll show up,” Lumpkin told Capital B Atlanta. “We’re gonna show up for Kamala.”
Georgia state Rep. Billy Mitchell, D-Stone Mountain, said he believes the polls showing lower Black enthusiasm for Harris are “flawed.” He noted the record voter registration rates in Georgia and across the nation, as well as the unprecedented fundraising Harris received upon entering the race in July as evidence.
“One thing about the polling, it does not measure newly registered voters,” Mitchell said. “It doesn’t measure folks who were normally not engaged in the political process. [Harris] has extraordinary support from those two demographics, and I think that she’ll really surprise a lot of people.”
Obama’s remarks
Black Georgia icons Samuel L. Jackson, fellow Morehouse graduate Spike Lee, and Atlanta metro-area resident Tyler Perry were there to help Obama and Harris drive home their message along with U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, and former DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond.
Obama did his best on Thursday to help energize the Democratic Party’s largely Black voting base in Georgia. The man whose photo is often hung proudly on walls inside barbershops, beauty salons, and the homes of Black seniors next to the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Nelson Mandela, hugged Harris on stage, seemingly passing her the proverbial torch.
During his speech, Obama echoed some of the same complaints and observations frustrated Black Georgians have made about their current economic prospects after four years of the Biden-Harris administration and what they remember about life when Trump was president.
He reminded them that the good economy they remember under Trump was the one Trump inherited from Obama. The nation enjoyed 76 consecutive months of job growth under Obama for a net gain of 11.6 million jobs. Trump’s economy, in contrast, lost 2.7 million jobs, largely due to Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Obama noted he, too, inherited economic calamity stemming from the Great Recession of 2008, which was caused by the subprime mortgage crisis that exploded during the final months of George W. Bush’s presidency.
“I had spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans had left me, and then I handed over [76] straight months of job growth to Donald Trump, and all he did was give tax cuts to folks who didn’t need it, drove up the deficit in the process, and now he wants to do it again,” Obama said. “You can’t give him credit for that.”
He also underscored fears amongst some Black Georgians about Trump becoming a dictator if he’s reelected — concerns that were echoed earlier this week by Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, who joined the chorus of former Trump officials who have issued warnings about Trump’s autocratic ambitions.
The economy placed second (17.1%) among Black Georgians’ top concerns in the latest University of Georgia poll conducted earlier this month. Preserving democracy came in first (24.3%).
“He said, if he’s elected, he’ll use [the] military to go after ‘the enemy within,’ which he defines as anybody who criticizes him or refuses to bend the knee,” Obama told the crowd of Trump at Thursday’s rally. “And unlike last time, unlike the first time, he won’t have people like John Kelly around to stop him. …
“And so, my question to you, Georgia, is how is any of that going to help you?” Obama continued. “We do not need four years of a wannabe king, a wannabe dictator, running around trying to punish his enemies. That’s not what you need in your life.”
