NAACP Town Halls Aim To Mobilize Black Voters For Midterms
The NAACP launched a series of town halls this week to mobilize Black voters ahead of the 2026 midterms.
According to CBS News, the first town hall took place on Tuesday in New Jersey with Mayor Ras Baraka, Rep. Monica McIver, and several other local leaders in attendance. Baraka and McIver were both arrested earlier this year at a protest outside of a Newark ICE detention center. Baraka had his charges dropped, but McIver was charged with assaulting a federal law enforcement officer.
'It may still seem far away, but the 2026 midterm elections will determine whether our democracy still holds on or whether the people surrender their power to a king,' NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement to CBS News. 'So, from our perspective, as the NAACP, it's clear: we've got to start organizing early.'
Johnson's warning of democracy being at risk is far from hyperbole. The NAACP's town halls come as Texas Republicans have begun a redistricting process critics have called blatant gerrymandering. Texas Democrats have stood their ground, fleeing the state to prevent a vote on a new map that would add five new seats in Republican-controlled districts. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the arrest of the Texas Democrats and filed a lawsuit to have the lawmakers removed from office. The Texas redistricting effort has inspired several Democrat-led states to consider a redistricting attempt of their own to counterpunch Texas.
These aren't things that happen in a healthy, well-functioning democracy.
We care about your data. See our privacy policy.
In the coming months, the NAACP plans to have town halls in Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin, New York, and Maryland. The town halls will focus on Trump's policies and the adverse effect they've had on Black communities. This includes the Trump administration's attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in schools and workplaces, as well as examining how cuts to SNAP benefits and Medicaid will disproportionately affect Black communities.
'Our neighbors are being illegally kidnapped by ICE, Trump's budget is taking away our health care and access to food stamps, and our civil rights are being stripped away at every turn – all while costs, from housing to groceries, continue to rise, and the billionaire class get richer,' Johnson said in the statement.
The town halls will also encourage civic engagement with information on how to help with voter recruitment, grassroots organizing, and old-fashioned door-to-door campaigning. 'We've got to strengthen community, recruit volunteers, inform each other about Donald Trump's oppressive policies, and map out local strategies that will ensure everybody gets out to vote,' Johnson said in the statement.
'As we build toward the 2026 midterm election, our campaign will focus on connecting past liberation struggles to the urgent demands of the present,' Wisdom Cole, the NAACP's Senior National Director of Advocacy, told CBS.
The NAACP spent $20 million on voter mobilization efforts during the 2024 election, which helped get 14.5 million Black voters to the polls. While Black voters overwhelmingly went for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, 21% of Black men voted for Donald Trump. Given how much contempt the Trump administration has shown to Black and brown communities over the last year, one only hopes that number goes down significantly in the midterms.
SEE ALSO:
NAACP Create Pro-DEI 'Black Consumer Advisory'
NAACP Says It Will Sue Elon Musk's AI Company Over Alleged Increased Air Pollution In Memphis' Black Communities
SEE ALSO
NAACP Town Halls Aim To Mobilize Black Voters For Midterms was originally published on newsone.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
a few seconds ago
- CNN
Analysis: Do Democrats have a Zohran Mamdani problem?
FacebookTweetLink Ever since Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor two months ago, Republicans have been licking their chops, and prominent Democrats have been squirming. The GOP sees this as an opportunity to tie the broader Democratic Party to a self-described socialist with many far-left policies who is well poised to become mayor of the nation's largest city. And the reaction from some Democrats – many high-profile ones have declined to endorse him – suggests they see potential peril here. The issue is coming to a head. Polls reinforce Mamdani is a strong favorite to become mayor. Congressional Republicans are running ads invoking him as they try to hold onto the US House next year. And The New York Times reports he's heard from former President Barack Obama, perhaps signaling a thaw with the Democratic establishment. Now Mamdani is getting the Time magazine cover treatment. So, it's a good time to ask: How much of a liability could he be for Democrats? It's still too early to say. Mamdani remains very new on the national and even the local stage, and much will depend on how he runs his campaign and ultimately, if he wins in November, how he governs. There have been some signs of attempted moderation. But we do have some early clues about how he could affect his party. For starters, Mamdani is clearly not popular outside of New York City. A Siena College poll this week showed statewide New York voters disliked him 37%-28% – and that's in a left-leaning state. A recent Yahoo News-YouGov poll, meanwhile, showed a relatively similar verdict among Americans nationwide: 31%-22% negative. While those aren't good numbers, they don't exactly suggest he's a pariah who could be used effectively as a bogeyman on the national stage – at least yet. In the national survey, 46% didn't even have an opinion of the Democratic mayoral nominee, underscoring the room that exists for him to define himself — or be defined by others. (Even in New York, 34% of voters didn't have an opinion about him.) It's relatively normal for politicians to be somewhat underwater these days. Mamdani's numbers in New York state were better than those of his top two opponents, New York Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, for example. And his national numbers are about as negative as President Donald Trump's, if you adjust for name recognition. But the polls also reinforce how Mamdani could alienate some key voters. Both surveys show he's popular with young voters, but he gets much less popular as voters get older. The New York poll showed voters 55 and older dislike him 47%-18%. The national poll shows voters 45 and older dislike him about 2-to-1. From there, it's a question of whether his ideas could alienate lots of voters – as people become familiar with them and particularly if he actually pursues some of the more far-left ones. Trump and others have painted Mamdani as not just a socialist, but also as a communist. The Yahoo poll suggested that some of Mamdani's more socialistic proposals are actually quite popular. For instance, Americans liked the idea of freezing rent for low-income tenants, 60%-22%. They liked making public buses free, 46%-36%. They even liked Mamdani's (much-maligned on the right) idea of government-owned grocery stores, 51%-31%. Whether those policies would work in practice is a huge variable, but voters actually seem to like them in theory. And to the extent Mamdani focuses on kitchen-table issues, it's less likely some of these stances would be a problem for Democrats. But then we get into the other stuff. Mamdani has a problematic paper trail on some hot-button issues that Republicans have been gleeful to highlight. Late in the primary, he refused to condemn the phrase 'globalize the intifada,' leading some Democrats who view it as a call to arms against Jewish people to strongly rebuke him. He's since signaled he would discourage the phrase. Mamdani has also in the past supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. But polls suggest relatively few Americans are familiar with these subjects. A 2022 Pew Research Center poll, for instance, showed 84% of Americans said they'd heard 'not much' or 'nothing at all' about the BDS movement. The polls also suggest Americans writ large are adopting an increasingly skeptical posture toward Israel and its prosecution of the war against Hamas in Gaza. That doesn't mean people will be okay with 'globalize the intifada' or Mamdani's comments about the phrase, but it suggests his criticisms of Israel might be less of an issue than they once could have been. Mamdani was also once an outspoken supporter of the Defund the Police movement, which was prominent among some corners of the left amid racial justice protests years ago. He called the NYPD 'racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety' and once mocked an image of a crying police officer. Those comments could be a problem for his party, given it's been relatively rare to see a high-profile Democrat who espoused defunding the police. Polling from 2021 showed as much as 70% of Americans opposed that movement. But Mamdani's now sought to distance himself from those past comments and said he doesn't support defunding the police anymore. And finally is the s-word: socialist. Americans' views on socialism have improved somewhat in recent years, owing in large part to the rise of self-described 'democratic socialist' Bernie Sanders, the Independent Vermont senator. But socialism as a whole has remained an unpopular ideology. Gallup polling in 2021 showed Americans viewed it unfavorably, 59%-38%. A Pew poll showed they opposed socialism by a similar margin, 60%-36%. And a Fox News poll in 2022 showed voters said that the country moving toward socialism would be a bad thing, 60%-32%. But just because they don't like socialism doesn't mean they're not open to candidates who use that label. Sanders, for one, remains popular even as he's embraced the 'democratic socialist' label. A Gallup poll last month showed he actually had the best numbers of 10 US political figures tested. And in second place? Another self-described democratic socialist, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. She, like Sanders, beat out a series of Trump administration figures tested by Gallup. All of which could suggest Mamdani might not be the pariah Republicans envision him as — depending on how he adjusts to his newfound prominence. Republicans certainly have material to work with here, but time will tell.
The Hill
a few seconds ago
- The Hill
Tariff rebate checks in 2025? What we know about current legislation
(WJW) – It's not a pandemic stimulus check, but Congress is currently weighing the possibility of sending the American people more money. As part of the American Worker Rebate Act, introduced by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri in July, people would receive hundreds of dollars in tariff rebate checks, which work to counteract the financial burden imposed on families by the Trump administration's tariffs. As the bill stands now, a household would get $600 for every child and adult – meaning a family of four would receive $2,400. Check amounts go down for those U.S. residents who are making more than $150,000 as a family or $75,000 individually. The bill has not been passed by the Senate or the House, and it must overcome multiple obstacles before being brought to President Trump's desk to sign. However, last month, Trump did say he was 'thinking about' approving a rebate. If the revenue from the latest tariff rollout exceeds projections, the bill leaves room for a larger rebate to be sent out to the American people. So far, there has been no word from Congress or the IRS on the possibility of a fourth stimulus check, like those issued during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. A rebate is a refund of something already paid for, while a stimulus is simply money given to pump up the economy. The U.S. Senate is currently on break for the summer and will be back in action on Sept. 2.
The Hill
a few seconds ago
- The Hill
Appeals panel declines Louisiana's invitation to gut Voting Rights Act
A federal appeals court panel declined Louisiana's invitation to gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that has required the state to draw additional majority-minority districts, ruling Thursday that the argument is foreclosed by binding precedent. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision upholds a judge's ruling that blocked Louisiana's state legislative maps by finding they 'packed' and 'cracked' Black communities in violation of Section 2, the VRA's central remaining provision. The state urged the 5th Circuit, regarded as the nation's most conservative federal appeals court, to use the case to rule Section 2 unconstitutional by finding that conditions in the state no longer justify race-conscious remedies. The panel wrote that the Pelican State's position would 'eschew a clear mandate from the Supreme Court and disregard Congress's intent,' only briefly addressing the argument in the final three of the opinion's 54 pages. 'The State's challenge to the constitutionality of § 2 is foreclosed by decades of binding precedent affirming Congress's broad enforcement authority under the Fifteenth Amendment,' the ruling reads. Left unmentioned was the Supreme Court's case next term over Louisiana's congressional map, which raises overlapping questions about the VRA's future. The high court heard arguments this spring but will rehear the case Oct. 15. 'We strongly disagree with the Fifth Circuit panel's decision. We are reviewing our options with a focus on stability in our elections and preserving state and judicial resources while the Supreme Court resolves related issues,' Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) said in a statement. The 5th Circuit panel on Thursday also rejected Louisiana's separate argument that would broadly weaken the VRA: private parties have no right to sue under Section 2. It would take away the ability for cases to be brought civil rights groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which brought the underlying lawsuit, and leave any challenges to the Justice Department. Louisiana's case has attracted attention particularly after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the position at the urging of other Republican-led states. But the 5th Circuit panel relegated the argument to a footnote, saying it 'is foreclosed by Fifth Circuit precedent.' The panel comprised James Dennis, nominated to the bench by former President Clinton, Catharina Haynes, nominated by former President George W. Bush, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez, nominated by former President Biden. Most of the panel's unsigned opinion was dedicated to Louisiana's narrower arguments to overturn the lower ruling blocking its state legislative maps. Louisiana argued U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick improperly set an expedited trial date, she was required to transfer the case to a three-judge panel and she failed to correctly apply Supreme Court precedent on the VRA. The panel rejected all those arguments, leaving the Obama-nominated judge's block in place. Dick ruled in February 2024 that the designs disenfranchised thousands of Black voters in violation of Section 2. She was prepared to order the state to conduct a special election rather than wait for the next cycle in 2027, but the 5th Circuit declined to allow her to do so as they considered the case.
