WARREN, Mich. — Joseph R. Biden has something going for him that Hillary Clinton lacked four years ago — a running mate who energizes Black voters here and in other battlegrounds.
Rick Blocker, chair of the 14th Congressional District Democrats in Detroit, said Sen. Kamala D. Harris is generating a level of excitement in his Black community that was missing in 2016.
“I hate knocking a Democrat, but Tim Kaine didn’t bring anything to the table,” Mr. Blocker said. “Now we have somebody who we are excited about who is running for vice president. You can’t imagine the excitement here when you compare that to Tim Kaine. He comes from right-to-work states. This is a union town.”
Mr. Biden’s path to victory in the 2020 presidential election likely runs through cities such as Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, where Black voter turnout dropped sharply between 2012 and 2016. There had been some on-the-ground panicking over the Biden campaign’s decision to stop canvassing out of concern for the coronavirus.
The Biden campaign switched gears last week, announcing they were re-launching door-to-door efforts after yielding the playing field to the Trump campaign and allied groups for months.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, says Democrats like Mr. Biden have taken Black voters for granted and says his administration has done more for the Black community than nearly all his predecessors.
“Nobody has done more for the Black community than Donald Trump since Abraham Lincoln,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Virginia last month.
Mr. Trump touts the passage of the bipartisan First Step Act — which provided more leeway in sentencing and led to the release of thousands of first-time drug offenders from prison — and the pre-coronavirus unemployment rate as proof he’s getting the job done.
Last month, he vowed to designate the KKK and Antifa as terrorist organizations, make lynching a national hate crime and boost investment in Black communities by nearly $500 billion.
Mr. Biden and his campaign on Tuesday amplified the candidate’s direct appeal to black voters.
The 77-year-old said he would be a leader in the movement for social justice and a unifying voice in the fight over policing that has sparked protests and riots across the country.
“We should have no tolerance for extremist white supremacists menacing of our communities,” Mr. Biden said. “If you say we have no need to face racial injustice in the country, you haven’t opened your eyes to the truth in America,” he said.
The Biden campaign also rolled out a new television ad featuring Ms. Harris and an online video of former first lady Michelle Obama delivering a “closing argument” with a blistering critique of Mr. Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our commander-in-chief, sadly, has been missing in action,” Mrs. Obama said in a video, arguing that Mr. Trump’s bungled response to the coronavirus is the biggest in a string of failures. The coronavirus has hit the Black community harder than others. The mortality rate among Black Americans has been twice as high as for Whites.
“We can no longer pretend that we don’t know exactly who and what this president stands for,” Mrs. Obama said. “Search your hearts, and your conscience, and then vote for Joe Biden like your lives depend on it.”
The Democratic National Committee also is running ads in local African American newspapers and radio stations in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Mr. Biden’s often unconventional campaign has at times fed into lingering concerns the party could be headed toward a repeat of 2016 when Mr. Trump smashed through the “Blue Wall” of states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin — that had backed Democrats for decades.
Mr. Trump won those three states by just 80,000 votes combined.
Mrs. Clinton faced a dip in Black voter turnout, and an uptick in White, non-college-educated voters turned out for Mr. Trump.
The Rev. Wallace A. Gilbert Jr., an assistant pastor at Church of the Messiah in Detroit, said fellow Black voters didn’t take Mr. Trump seriously four years ago — but won’t make the same mistake again.
“People just said to themselves, nobody will vote for this man,” Mr. Gilbert said. “The stuff he said, things he did during the campaign, mocking everybody, degrading women, nobody could believe this country would elect this man president.”
Mr. Gilbert said it is clear to him that Mr. Trump is a racist.
“The reason he won in ’16 is because the Black vote didn’t turn out,” he said. “I think it is going to be different this time.”
Democrats are optimistic Black voters will be more eager to vote after living through four years of Mr. Trump.
Justin Cunningham, of Milwaukee, said he didn’t vote in 2016 because he didn’t like his choices, but said that there is too much on the line in 2020 for him to stay on the sidelines.
“I’m not really a political person, but I know that the time that we are in at this moment that voting is very important — especially for the Black community,” the 30-year-old massage therapist said.
Mr. Cunningham said he is backing Mr. Biden, citing the Trump’s administration’s push to scrap Obamacare, as well as its response to the coronavirus and the uptick in racial tension.
“Biden is winning in our community because Biden is actually 10 toes down in the field trying to figure out what he has to do to fix what is going on,” he said, before contrasting that with Mr. Trump’s recent visits to cities experiencing civil unrest. “He only shows up, not to deescalate the situation, not to be president and say ’I don’t stand for this.’ He goes out there and makes a mockery of what is going on.”
Mr. Cunningham said there is residual goodwill among Black voters like himself for Mr. Biden from the time the former vice president spent in the trenches with former President Barack Obama.
“He did things for us in the community that we really needed and appreciated,” he said. “Obamacare was awesome, it helped our community a lot. I can’t say the same thing about Trump.”
Cherita, who asked that her last name not be used, said she is “screwed” if the Trump administration does away with Obamacare, which saves her hundreds of dollars a month that she would have to pay for health care through her employer.
“Trump becoming president has made things worse,” the 33-year-old hospitality worker said. “It has allowed racist people to be more comfortable with how they are, and they feel like they can just go say and do whatever because the president says and does whatever, and it doesn’t make it OK.”
A Black woman, she said Mr. Biden still has some convincing to do with minority voters.
“They are like, ’Biden ain’t really for the people, but Biden is making it seem like he is for the people,’” she said of conversations she has seen on social media. “Well, I’d rather have Biden be for the people than knowing damn good well that Trump is not for the people. He doesn’t care about nobody but Trump.
“In my opinion, we can’t afford another four years of Trump,” she said. “At this point, an elephant could run, and I’d vote for the damn elephant” over Mr. Trump.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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