Legal marijuana, forgivable loans plan as Trump grows Black voter share

Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled an “Opportunity Agenda” proposal for Black men Monday, which includes plans to provide 1 million forgivable loans to Black entrepreneurs and new pathways to help Black Americans succeed in the legalized marijuana industry.

“This agenda is a further realization of Vice President Harris’ Opportunity Economy,” said former Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Harris campaign co-chair, in a statement. “An economy where people don’t just get by, but get ahead. Where Black men are equipped with the tools to thrive: to buy a home, provide for our families, start a business and build wealth.”

Harris’s announcement is aimed at increasing her support among Black male voters, and comes in the final weeks of an extremely close race between the Democratic vice president and Republican former President Donald Trump.

The plan outlined Monday would provide 1 million fully forgivable loans of up to $20,000 to Black entrepreneurs and others to start a business. The loans would be financed through partnerships between “mission-driven lenders,” community oriented banks and the Small Business Administration, the campaign said.

The agenda also includes training and mentorship programs to help Black men get jobs in high-demand industries, and greater investments in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to recruit and retain Black male teachers.

The PSLF program provides student loan forgiveness after 10 years to borrowers who work in certain non-profit and government jobs. Black men make up less than 2% of public school teachers in the U.S., according to the findings of the National Teacher and Principal Survey for the 2020-21 school year.

A victory in November would make Harris the first Black woman and the first South Asian person ever elected president of the United States.

Harris also promised she would support federal-level marijuana legalization, a major step beyond the Biden administration’s current stance on cannabis, which includes pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession and exploring a potential reclassification of marijuana’s on the drug schedule.

Harris “will break down unjust legal barriers that hold Black men and other Americans back by legalizing marijuana nationally, working with Congress to ensure that the safe cultivation, distribution, and possession of recreational marijuana is the law of the land,” according to a Harris campaign statement.

“She will also fight to ensure that as the national cannabis industry takes shape, Black men—who have, for years, been over policed for marijuana use—are able to access wealth and jobs in this new market,” the campaign said.

Harris’ new plan also contains a few lines about digital assets, another area where Harris appears poised to break ranks with the Biden administration.

According to her campaign, Harris “knows that more than 20% of Black Americans own or have owned cryptocurrency assets, which is why her plans will make sure owners of and investors in digital assets benefit from a regulatory framework so that Black men and others who participate in this market are protected.”

It was not clear Monday what that framework would look like, but a fierce battle over cryptocurrency regulation is well underway in Washington.

Although polls show that Black voters overwhelmingly support Harris over Trump, by the end of the 2020 race, President Joe Biden had garnered a higher share of the key Democratic constituency is currently picking up three weeks out from Election Day, according to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll.

Pollsters in the field in late September and early October found that roughly 15% of Black likely voters said they planned to vote for Trump in November. This is six percentage points higher than Biden’s final margin with Black voters in the 2020 race. The figures effectively quantify the ground that Harris hopes to make up in the coming weeks.

With her new proposals for Black men, Harris also hopes to draw a stark contrast between her and Trump.

The vice president regularly ties the former president to the Project 2025 agenda, a collection of hardline policy plans developed by a conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, in conjunction with more than 100 other right-leaning organizations.

Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, which proposes slashing funding for education and safety net programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.