ABINGTON, Pa. — The predominantly Black crowd here responded with deep sighs and some laughter when the discussion in Tuesday night’s presidential debate turned to Donald Trump’s baseless attack on Kamala Harris’s racial identity.
Why, a moderator asked the former president, did he believe it was appropriate to weigh in on such a topic?
“I don’t. And I don’t care. I don’t care what she is,” Trump replied.
One woman in the crowd retorted loudly: “Then, why’d you say it?!”
She was referring to Trump’s comment in July accusing Harris of once hiding her Black heritage, which she has routinely highlighted in her career. On Tuesday night, Trump went on to defend himself, claiming without presenting evidence that he had “read where she was not Black,” and then “read that she was Black.” He added, “Either one was okay with me.”
When the moderator asked for her thoughts on the comments, the vice president, who is Black and Indian American, called it a “tragedy” to have someone running for president who “has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people.” She referenced a 1970s racial bias case against Trump’s company; his promotion of false claims that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States; and his decision to take out a full-page newspaper ad calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty after the 1989 arrests of the “Central Park Five,” five Black and Latino boys who were later exonerated of assaulting and raping a woman in New York.
Attendees nodded in agreement and listened silently to Harris’s response.
“I do believe that the vast majority of us know that we have so much more in common than what separates us. And we don’t want this kind of approach that is just constantly trying to divide us, and especially by race,” Harris said. “I think the American people want better than that.”
“Yes we do!” another woman yelled out.
The response at a debate watch party, where nearly 200 community members gathered outside a historically Black church, offered one snapshot of how some Harris supporters see Trump’s attack on her racial identity, and how they want her to respond.
“I thought she handled it in a professional way and brought it back to, you know, let’s not make it about division. Let’s bring us together. Let’s come together and let’s build our country up,” said Haywood Willis, 59, echoing a point several other attendees made in interviews at the gathering in a Democratic area some 20 miles north of the Philadelphia, “That’s what we need.”
Willis, a financial analyst, said he wished Harris and Trump had elaborated more on their policy plans during the debate but he liked that Harris stayed on message, focusing on unity — while Trump behaved like a “schoolyard kid.”
The watch party, which the Salem Baptist Church, Montgomery County and the City of Philadelphia hosted, was held on a football field next to the church, which is the oldest historically Black church in this left-leaning county. Billed as a nonpartisan event, it featured a 33-foot screen to watch the debate and a DJ and food trucks before the debate began to energize the crowd. Organizers also set up tables with information on how to register to vote.
Marshall Mitchell, pastor of Salem Baptist Church, said his hope was that people left debate night feeling more engaged and informed on their choices.
A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that the commitment of Black Americans to vote this fall has rebounded since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. And among Black registered voters, 82 percent say they will “definitely” or “probably” vote for Harris this November, the poll found. That’s up from 74 percent who said they would support Biden in April, albeit still lower than Biden’s 87 percent mark among Black voters according to 2020 exit polls.
Sydney Wilson-Roberts, 29, said that, as a young Black woman, the biggest moment for her was hearing Harris defending women’s reproductive rights and calling out Trump’s shifting views. She said it’s the most important issue driving her to vote this year.
“He’ll say he’s for IVF and for certain things when it comes to abortion, but I don’t believe him,” said Wilson-Roberts, an events manager, sporting a Howard University shirt. “And I truly believe that, if elected, she will have my reproductive rights in mind and all of the women across the country.”
Branford Jones, 32, criticized Trump for saying that Black voters like him more because of his indictments and mug shot and undocumented immigrants are taking away “Black jobs.” Trump renewed the latter comment during the debate.
“I do not believe that he will do anything for Black folks or have Black people’s best interests at heart,” said Jones, who owns a music production company.
Jones said he went into the debate night clear-eyed about his support for Harris and felt most of the party attendees felt the same given her credentials, not only as a former senator and prosecutor, but as a multiracial woman who attended Howard University and belongs to Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically Black sorority. He added he was hopeful that undecided Americans in other parts of the country left feeling similarly about the vice president.
Dannita Brooker, 70, said Harris’s responses to Trump — particularly on race — were effective because she was defining him and forcing him to explain himself.
“She told his story of what he did, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t know how to respond,” said Brooker, a pastor who lives in the nearby borough North Wales. “He wants to be in the limelight. He wants to be the star. And he’s not the star anymore. He doesn’t know how to deal with that.”
“I’m hoping for the best, but I live in Trump territory,” Brooker added. “And the election isn’t over.”