Kamala Harris Struggles With Young Black Men as Gen Z Skips Church

It was a classic hot mic moment: while Kamala Harris grabbed a beer at a bar in Michigan with Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Saturday, the Vice President apparently let slip that her campaign was struggling to get through to male voters.

“We need to move ground among men,” she was heard to confide, seemingly unaware the mic was still on.

In particular, Harris has been striving to reach young Black voters, at one point recruiting former president Barack Obama to put his shoulder to the wheel. Responses on social media suggested the intervention backfired, with many considering his remarks to be disrespectful and patronizing.

Now new analysis seen by Newsweek shows that Harris’ task has been made more difficult by the decline in church attendance by young Black men in America.

The Democrats have long enjoyed and relied upon support from this demographic: since 1980, no Democrat has failed to receive less than 80 percent of the Black vote, with churches and religious communities serving as a vital channel of communication for the Democratic party.

Harris, a Baptist and former choirgirl with a long history of civil rights campaigning, is seemingly well placed to connect with religious leaders.

However the church seems to be losing support among younger voters, blowing a hole in Harris’ outreach.

Research by the 2040 Strategy Group shows that Millennial and Gen Z voters are now over 45 percent of the Black electorate, and that these same groups are significantly less engaged with the church than older generations.

According to Pew Research, the Baby Boomer generation are significantly more religious than Millennials and Gen Z voters – some 50 percent of Boomers reported that they regularly attend Black congregations. Just three-in-ten Millennials and Gen Z voters said they attended.

Dr. Tabitha Bonilla, co-founder of the 2040 Strategy Group and an expert on voting behavior, told Newsweek that the decline in congregation attendance was partly a cultural trend, as younger people are less likely to hold strong religious beliefs.

“There has been a generational decline in church attendance. Pew’s data estimates about a 13% drop in attendance of a Black church from the oldest generations to the youngest. And, in addition to being less likely to attend a Black church, younger generations are simply much less religious in general and less likely to be connected to a Black church at all.

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