DETROIT — Eric Brown, a podcaster and former Detroit News blogger, considers himself an “independent voice” in politics. He’s voted third party since 2012 and not with the Democrats, unlike 90% of black voters.
So Brown was surprised when a friend reached out with a request: “Stand down” on his criticism of Kamala Harris, the vice president and expected Democratic presidential nominee.
“There’s too much at stake,” the friend said. “Can you do me the favor?”
“I laughed at that,” Brown said, adding that a more in-depth response to that friend is forthcoming. “I thought it was ridiculous.”
“To disappear from commenting on politics is not me,” said Brown.
Detroit political consultant Mario Morrow also got a couple of phone calls confirming his commitment to Harris’ candidacy.
“Two black women called me this morning on different times saying, ‘Hey, we know you’re going to be with Kamala, right?’” Morrow told The Post.
When President Biden withdrew from the 2024 race Sunday via tweet, Harris quickly assembled the votes to secure the Democratic nomination.
Those calls reflect the level of excitement black women carry into the 2024 election, now reinvigorated with Harris atop the ticket, said former Michigan state rep Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, a Democrat who now sits on the Detroit school board.
“When black women are fired up, there’s nothing that will stop us,” Gay-Dagnogo told The Post.
She partook in a Zoom call Sunday night with the organization Win With Black Women, where some 40,000 people were tuned into the four-hour-long virtual conference that raised more than $1.5 million.
At one point during this marathon Zoom conference, an AP survey revealed that Harris secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party’s nominee.
While the Harris campaign is starting late in the year, with fewer than four months to Election Day and no running mate yet announced, Gay-Dagnogo says the size of the early support augurs well for Democrats.
“It’s not just a campaign, it’s a movement,” she told The Post. “No one has galvanized this energy so rapidly.”
Gay-Dagnogo, a black woman, says black women see the Harris candidacy as a chance to “come out of the background” and step into “first place.”
And the fact she’d be a first — not only the first female president but also the first black female president — holds significant value for black voters, Gay-Dagnogo said.
“It doesn’t fix everything in America, but it shows that there is hope. There’s hope to move beyond how we’ve been viewed, how we’ve been treated, an opportunity to now start as a leading representative of this country.”
Gay-Dagnogo will be working the phones for Harris, making the sort of calls Morrow received Monday.
Karen Dumas, a longtime politico and political observer in Detroit, said it’s well-known among friends that she doesn’t “get actively or visibly involved in campaigns,” and for the most part “people respect that.”
But on Sunday Dumas heard from several friends, who were “respectfully but passively informative” in passing on the Zoom link to the Win With Black Women call, just in case she wanted to take part.
She didn’t.
Still, Dumas noted Harris’ large fundraising haul: $100 million in the three days since she was elevated to the top of the ticket.
“The money that was raised was evidence of the social and economic leverage that black people have, and should be using, every day,” Dumas said.
Dumas, a black woman herself, is not moved by the history-making demographics of the Harris campaign.
“We checked the box of First Black President with Obama, but what were the accomplishments?” Dumas asked. “It’s not important that it’s a woman, it has to be the right woman. We have to look at candidates in their entirety.”
Brown said he didn’t buy into Harris in 2020 and still doesn’t now — no matter how many of his friends might call.
“I feel the same way about Harris that Barack Obama feels,” Brown said, citing a Sunday statement in which Obama urged a competitive primary.
“There should be a process to pick the nominee.”