Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris know if they want to win Georgia, they need to secure the Black vote. Black people make up Georgia’s largest minority voting bloc, representing roughly 30% of all registered voters in the swing state.

Black men played a critical role in electing President Joe Biden. A total of 83% of Black men in Georgia cast a ballot for Biden in 2020, the Washington Post reported. Now, a week before the 2024 election, the candidates are crisscrossing the state to reach Black men, with Harris working to maintain Democrats’ traditional edge among the demographic.

Over 77% of Black Georgians plan to vote for Harris, according to a recent poll from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. That’s a jump from the 70% who were backing Biden when asked in June, but still far less than the 90% of votes Biden received from Black Georgians in the 2020 election.  

There have been rumblings for months among some pollsters that Black men might be leaving the Democratic party, instead choosing to throw their support behind Trump.

Despite what some polls are saying, John Taylor believes “the reality is very different.”

Taylor is the co-founder of the Black Male Initiative Georgia, a nonprofit that focuses on getting Black men civically engaged in the Peach State. Through door-to-door canvassing and events, his group has had over 195,000 conversations with Black men during this election cycle. The vast majority — roughly 83% — voiced their support for Harris.

“I don’t believe that we’re more inclined to vote for Trump,” Taylor says. “I think it’s an atrocious, racist trope to think that because Trump has 34 charges, or his misogynistic behavior, that it in some way endears him to Black men. That’s not who we are.”USA TODAY spoke with Black men on the ground in Georgia to see where they stood on the matchup between Harris and Trump.

A house divided

Josh Gossett, a 33-year-old small business owner in Atlanta, has seen this dynamic play out in his own family. Gossett voted early for Harris. His younger brother Aaron will be casting a ballot for Trump this year.

He believes his brother was eventually won over by Trump’s antagonistic attitude.

“It isn’t about the policies,” Gossett tells USA TODAY. “For people like my brother, it really is about opposition to the mainstream. They see Trump as an avatar for all their anger and frustrations that they’ve had with the system.”

Gossett feels that system has often “left behind” Black men like him and his brother, leaving them “underpaid and underemployed” in the modern workforce. Those disparities in employment and financial opportunity then translate to frustrations at the ballot box.

That’s when a politician like Trump enters, fueling economic insecurities with anti-immigrant rhetoric.

“If any group of people is vulnerable to the idea that immigrants are ‘stealing’ their jobs, it’s Black men,” Gossett says.

‘Racism got real bad under Trump’

Robert James is a 67-year-old rideshare driver who lives in a suburb of Atlanta. While driving, he’s inundated with constant reminders of the presidential election—on the radio, interstate billboards, and customers eager to chat about politics. Like many Americans, he’s excited for the election to be over.

“I’m tired of seeing the commercials,” he sighs.

But campaign ads aside, James knows this election is important—particularly for Black men. He fears that racism would escalate under a second Trump presidency.

“After Trump was elected, it reminded me of the days after Sept.11th,” James says. “Racism got real bad under Trump, after he first got in there. It gave people permission to be racist.”

Like the rise in hate crimes faced by Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans following the 2001 terrorist attacks, violence against Black Americans skyrocketed in the wake of Trump’s election.

According to a study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were 187 hate incidents committed against Black people in the first 10 days following the 2016 election. Some of these amounted to hate crimes.

It is facts like this that make it even more disheartening for James to see fellow Black men support Trump. “My question for them is: why? Why do you continue to back this man? You see how he is.”

Harris’ plans for Black men

Thousands of people gathered to hear former First Lady Michelle Obama speak at a rally on Tuesday in College Park, just south of downtown. Many were bussed in from Atlanta’s historically Black colleges and universities, proudly donning the colors of Harris’ sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

But Laquann Wilson, a 27-year-old student from Alabama State University, traveled hours to attend the nonpartisan rally. Wilson says he’s open to “learning to work together” across political differences but doesn’t identify strongly with either party.

“At the end of the day, we all need jobs. The cost of gas is high for everyone. So, if you can help me with a better economic policy, I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat,” Wilson explains. “I just want a president who is wise and has clear policies for the Black community.”

Taylor, the co-founder of the Black Male Initiative, believes that Harris has the better policies for Black men.

He points to her plan to provide loans that would forgive up to $20,000 for Black entrepreneurs to start a business, as well as her goal to legalize marijuana so people of color can have access to the booming multi-billion-dollar industry.

But Taylor emphasizes that it’s important to remember – especially when discussing the role of Black men in the election – that the Black vote doesn’t operate in a vacuum.“We have always been amongst the most progressive voting blocs in this country since the inception of our right to vote – in spite of being drawn and quartered, tarred and feathered, and killed on the road to the polls.”

So, while the Black vote “is a powerful voice and critical component,” Taylor says, it’s not up to them alone to put any particular candidate in office.

“If we don’t win, it’s not because enough Black men or women didn’t show up. It’s because well-meaning white women and men didn’t vote their conscious. That’s what is going to keep Vice President Kamala Harris from the White House. It’s not the brothers.”

Melissa Cruz is an elections reporting fellow who focuses on voter access issues for the USA TODAY Network. You can reach her at mcruz@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, at @MelissaWrites22.