WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama had frank words for black men who may be considering sitting out the election.

“Part of it makes me think that you just don't like the idea of ​​having a woman as president and that you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for it,” he told Harris-Walz campaign volunteers and on Thursday Officials at a field office in Pittsburgh.

America's first black president struck a nerve among Democrats worried about Vice President Kamala Harris' chances of becoming the second.

In her close race with Republican Donald Trump, Harris is counting on black voter turnout in battleground states like Pennsylvania Energy for men of all races And tried to penetrate especially with black men.

Obama's comments suggest that black men still overwhelmingly support Harris. But her campaign and allies have worked hard to shore up support among this critical group of voters — and address questions about potential misogyny.

Black Americans are the most Democratic demographic in the country, with black men second only to black women in their support for Democrats.

A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 7 in 10 black voters had a positive view of Harris, preferring her leadership to Trump's on several key policy issues, including the economy, health care, abortion, immigration and the war between Israel and Hamas.

There was little difference in support for Harris between black men and black women.

But Khalil Thompson, co-founder and executive director of Win With Black Men, said he agreed with what he said was Obama's main concern.

“I believe that President Obama expresses a tangible, profound understanding of what it means for all men to have relationships with women in America. There is nothing wrong with denouncing misogyny,” said Thompson, whose group raised more than $1.3 million for Harris from 20,000 black men in the 24 hours after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July and gave way to Harris .

Win With Black Men has organized weekly calls and events to boost Harris' standing among black men. The wave of activism focused on combating misinformation in Black communities about Harris, as well as highlighting the political priorities of Black men, which the group noted often focus on greater economic opportunity, safe communities, social justice policies and health care. especially for the partners and children of black men.

“We’re not a monolith,” Thompson said. “However, we are like every other American in this country who wants a good-paying job, to be able to care for our children and participate in their lives and the lives of our spouses, to bring them home safely and to be able to afford “Go to the grocery store, save for retirement, and take a vacation.”

Harris said she believes Black men’s votes must be earnedas with any group of voters.

Black men “are not in our pockets,” she said at a panel discussion hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists in September.

Harris recently sat down with the “All The Smoke” podcast, hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, to discuss her racial identity and political issues of interest to black men. On Tuesday, Harris will appear in Detroit for a live conversation with Charlamagne tha God, a prominent black media personality.

The Harris campaign is conducting a series of outreach efforts to black voters, including a homecoming tour of historically black colleges and universities, a series of radio and television ads targeting black voters in key states, and a campaign to Voter engagement engaging Black communities, complementing the work of allied groups like Win With Black Men.

She has also recruited high-profile surrogates, including politicians, business leaders, professional athletes and musicians, to court black men.

“We need to get our black men to vote,” former NBA star Magic Johnson said at a recent Harris rally in Flint, Michigan. “Kamala’s opponent promised the black community many things that he failed to deliver. And we need to make sure we help black men understand that.”

The Trump campaign and its allies have held black men's roundtables and conducted a bus tour of swing states that included cookouts in cities like Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia. The campaign expects the former president's appeals on issues such as the economy, immigration and traditional gender roles to resonate with some black men.

Trump has also sought to exploit Obama's comments, writing on social media Friday that Obama “admits a complete lack of enthusiasm for Kamala, particularly among black men.” On Saturday, the campaign's Black Men for Trump advisory committee released a statement condemning Obama's comments as “offensive.”

“It is demeaning to suggest that we cannot evaluate a candidate’s track record — especially when Kamala Harris has done more harm than good to Black communities,” the group wrote in a letter co-signed by Rep. Byron Donalds, R- became. Fla. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Tex., as well as former state lawmakers and longtime Trump allies, including former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was sentenced to prison for corruption crimes commuted by Trump in the final hours of his administration.

Earlier this year, Trump mused that the criminal charges filed against him in four separate indictments, one of which resulted in a conviction and another in dismissal, made him more accessible to black people.

“A lot of people said that the reason black people liked me was because they were so badly hurt and discriminated against, and they actually saw me as discriminated against,” he told a black conservative audience in South Carolina.

Trump's support among black, white and Hispanic male voters worries senior Harris campaign officials Elections are becoming increasingly influential The election is split along gender lines, with Harris stronger among women and Trump stronger among men.

But the debate over the extent to which misogyny plays a role among some black men who do not support Harris misses a broader discussion about how black men engage in politics as full citizens, argues Philip Agnew, founder of the grassroots political organization Black Men Build.

“Being a black man in the United States means being simultaneously invisible and hypervisible, and neither is a humanizing view,” Agnew said.

Agnew's group traveled to ten cities over the summer, hosting roundtables with black men and advocating for civic engagement and progressive politics. Agnew said many black men in these conversations expressed anger toward politics, a feeling shared by many Americans, in addition to the feeling that their political perspectives were often misunderstood or unappreciated.

“The Black men I know care incredibly about the lives of our families and our communities,” Agnew said. “We ask questions out of love for our sisters and not out of a lack of love.”