Kamala Harris taps Barack Obama, Tim Walz to help woo male voters from Trump

Vice President Kamala Harris is dispatching top surrogates to address growing concerns that her lagging appeal to male voters – and outright misogyny – has put a ceiling on her electoral performance.
Former President Barack Obama underscored the concern directly during a visit to a campaign field office in Pittsburgh on Thursday, saying he was concerned “we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running.”
“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,” Obama said. “And you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
Separately, Harris’ campaign is sending her running mate, Tim Walz, on a tour targeting male voters that included an interview with former NFL star Michael Strahan on Good Morning America and local television interviews across swing states focused on hunting and football. Walz is also expected to attend the homecoming game at the Minnesota high school where he coached football.
The efforts underscore the extent to which gender has become a dividing line in an election that appears balanced on a razor’s edge, and concerns among Harris’ allies that she needs to do more to reach voters who appear skeptical about backing a woman for president.
“Some people that I spoke to seem to be looking for an excuse not to vote for Kamala Harris, and I think that’s laced with racism and misogyny,” said Paige Cognetti, the Democratic mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania — President Joe Biden’s hometown which lies in a critical region of a key swing state.
While noting she’s not a person of color, “as a female elected official, I kind of know it when I see it on that front,” Cognetti said.
Cognetti, whose home area in northeastern Pennsylvania saw a dramatic shift toward Donald Trump in 2016, said many voters now don’t like him. 
“They don’t like the way he talks, they don’t like his misogyny, they don’t like his racist rants, they don’t like what he’s saying, they don’t really like who he is,” Cognetti said, but added she senses some voters trying to create “a permission structure” to support the former president over Harris.
Polls underscore the scope of Harris’ challenge.
Male likely voters preferred Trump over Harris head-to-head by a 53%-42% margin in a New York Times/Siena College poll released earlier this week. The former president and his top surrogates – including Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk – have focused their campaign efforts largely on growing their share of male voters, appearing on sports podcasts and running advertisements targeting a male audience.
Harris also has struggled to win the support of some male-dominated unions that have traditionally backed Democrats – and who supported Biden’s presidential run. The Teamsters last month released polling data that showed that while their membership preferred Biden to Trump, more rank-and-file members backed Trump over Harris. The group ultimately opted not to endorse ahead of November’s election. 
Similarly, the International Association of Fire Fighters – the first union to endorse Biden in 2019 — opted against endorsing this cycle.
That’s left Harris’ prominent supporters, like Obama, pleading with voters to rethink why they were struggling to support her candidacy.
“Women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time,” Obama said. “When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting.”
The gender divide does cut both ways.
Female voters prefer Harris by a similar margin — by 56% to 40% in the NYT/Siena poll — and many are deeply distrustful of Trump for his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and end federal abortion rights.
Harris has made the issue a central plank of her campaign, and she’s looked to expand that advantage with media appearances of her own, including taping the “Call Her Daddy” podcast — which has a large female following — earlier this month.
Trump is also looking to broaden his appeal with a town hall set to air Wednesday before an all-female audience.
Harris was asked directly about whether her gender was an obstacle to victory during an interview earlier this week with Howard Stern. The vice president acknowledged but ultimately downplayed the prospect that some voters would refuse to support her simply because she was a woman.
“Listen, I’ve been the first, and first woman, in almost every position I’ve had,” Harris said. “I believe that men and women support women in leadership. And that’s been my life experience. And that’s why I’m running for president.”
Still, Harris has oriented her campaign around her economic proposals and criticism of Trump, rather than the possibility she’d make history with her election. It’s a marked contrast from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the only other woman to lead a major party ticket.
“They’re trying to ‘but her emails’ with Kamala Harris,” Cognetti said, referring to the charges in the 2016 election cycle that Clinton improperly used personal email accounts for official business. “People probably don’t even realize that that’s how they sound.”
That reluctance, Cognetti argued, is “why individual conversations are important” to “validate” Harris’ background and experience.
“There’s so much of her personal story that is going to resonate with people, but they have to be told that story because it’s not necessarily something that is going to come through wherever they get their news.”