A Michigan-based Democratic activist is calling out Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign for failing to win over black voters in the Mitten State by harping on the issue of abortion instead of the economy — and relying on “corrupt” local officials, “fake civil rights leaders like Al Sharpton,” and Hollywood stars to spread its message.
Arthur Woodson — a Flint resident who has met with Harris, 60, and partnered with the Biden White House as part of its “Cancer Moonshot” initiative — tore into the Democratic nominee’s team for its losing message and lack of ground game in Michigan during a phone interview with The Post on Thursday.
According to Woodson, the Harris-Walz campaign ignored how President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans were connecting with black voters and other ethnic groups in Flint on what they considered the number one issue in the 2024 election: the economy.
Other local matters, Woodson said, were also given short shrift by the Democratic team.
“When she [Harris] came to Flint, she didn’t say anything about the water, nothing at all,” noted Woodson, who has advocated for federally-funded studies to explore links between lead-contaminated water and cancer in his hometown. “Then you had people saying she isn’t coming with a plan for the African-American community. What is she gonna do for us?”
“Then you had the people talking about when she was a DA and a prosecutor [in California] and she locked up a lot of black people,” he added.
“People [are] tired of Democrats,” Woodson said at another point. “Because they get in power and they abuse power. But you want to tell us that the Republicans are racist? No, no. It’s the Democratic Party.”
Democrats’ abortion-focused campaign was also off-base, according to Woodson — even with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision overturning the nationwide legalization of the procedure just two years ago.
“President Trump said it to her [in the debate], ‘Hey, we did away with Roe versus Wade, but let the people in the states sort it out,’” he explained. “In Michigan, it’s legal for abortions. So why are you focusing in on that here in Michigan?”
In Genesee County, which comprises Flint and other townships, Trump lost to Harris but gained more than 5,000 votes from his 2020 election loss to President Biden.
Woodson first shared some of his strong views on the Harris campaign’s failures in an hour-long Facebook livestream on Wednesday morning after Trump’s projected victory.
“I’m just telling y’all what I see and hear on the streets, and this is why the Democratic Party cannot win no more,” he declared. “The people in the hood, man, you only get a little grocery bag full of food now. People don’t want to hear nothing else outside of that. … Gas [prices] high as hell.”
“But they chose to speak about mainly abortions,” he added. “Her team was a backwards team, man. Her team was a ass-backwards team. … They were in an echo chamber.”
In one high-profile miscue, both the Harris campaign and Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer smeared Howell, located roughly halfway between Detroit and Lansing, as a “KKK” city ahead of an August Trump rally there — despite Biden having also visited the city in 2021.
“Man, they said Trump [had] like weak women around him,” Woodson also quipped of another attack line used on the former president. “She had a whole bunch of weak, weak-ass men around her, for real.”
The Harris campaign also failed on the second-most important issue to most voters — immigration, Woodson told The Post.
“All the black people in Chicago — it’s all over Facebook, that they’re fighting because, you know, illegal immigrants are getting money and taking the resources from the people in that community,” he said.
“I still pass out water, I still pass out food [to underprivileged people] — and I started seeing a large number of foreign people in the line … where they couldn’t even speak English,” he said. “Then, when I’m knocking on doors, they’re in houses where it’s being refurbished, but the people here in Flint can’t even get their roof done.”
Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for Biden’s American Rescue Plan in 2021, which Woodson pointed out included just $94.7 million for Flint residents.
“You bring in more people taking money, and then what I noticed too is that they’re coming in to Michigan, getting housing vouchers, and then they’re leaving — going back down to Florida, taking the voucher,” he said of the migrants receiving tens of billions of dollars in federal subsidies nationwide for housing and health care.
“And they didn’t motivate the people, and then they were sending money into the city and the people who they had put in place to get out here and put the ground game on here — they was keeping the money and not doing what they were supposed to do,” he added.
Woodson further accused the campaign of failing to deploy or even pay many canvassers in Flint to get its message out, opting on celebrity endorsements and fly-in visits from outside black leaders.
“I kept calling the campaign [and saying], ‘Hey, listen … it don’t even feel like a presidential election year,’” he recalled. “You barely had anybody going door to door to pass out literature for Harris … And I don’t even know who was over [at] her headquarters in the city of Flint because you didn’t see them.”
“How in the world can you be in a Democratic city and Trump have more yard signs than than Vice President Harris?” he asked. “The community was never aware … what the game plan was, I mean, nobody knew nothing.”
“They didn’t deal with the people,” Woodson continued. “They dealt with all these fake, corrupt elected officials and fake civil rights leaders like Al Sharpton, bringing them into Flint.”
“Don’t nobody trust him, don’t nobody like him — keep him away from me. … He don’t excite nobody here,” the Flint activist said of the MSNBC host, adding: “The people [are] tired of seeing actors and actresses and all these other people.”
Detroit rapper Eminem was one of several celebrities who helped warm up a Harris rally in the Motor City during the final weeks of the campaign.
In both his Post interview and the Facebook livestream, Woodson also knocked Harris’ running mate pick of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, saying Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro would have helped her secure at least one blue wall state.
“Shapiro was laid back. Shapiro was cool as hell,” Woodson said in the livestream of the Keystone State governor, a Jewish official who was reportedly passed over out of fear that Democrats would alienate anti-Israel activists.
Walz, according to Woodson, was “too happy” and “the type that seems like he will invade your space if you’re talking to him.”
“You just have to push back a little bit, man, and be like, ‘Hey man, listen, all right, calm down, calm down, buddy,” he joked of an anticipated interaction with the Minnesota governor.
“Just comparing him at the debate and all that, [Vice President-elect] JD [Vance] has got it,” he added of the Ohio Republican senator and Trump running mate.
Not above ticket-splitting himself, Woodson revealed that he even cast a ballot on Tuesday for Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers — who was projected to narrowly lose to Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin — because Rogers cared about veterans’ disability issues and helped African-Americans with housing issues in Flint.
“Vice President Harris lost because it’s supposed to be Vice President Whitmer,” Woodson claimed in his livestream, referring to Biden’s reported first choice for a 2020 running mate.
“I heard that [former Michigan Democratic Rep.] Brenda Lawrence and, you know, different people … said [to Biden], ‘Hey, if you don’t pick Vice President Harris, we gonna, we’re gonna take our votes somewhere else or not vote,’” he told The Post.
“I think she feels good,” Woodson added of Whitmer’s state of mind post-election. “She don’t have to wait eight years now. She can wait four years now and get ready to run for president [in 2028].”
Despite his criticism of Harris and her campaign, Woodson did have good words for the veep herself.
“When she first ran, she came to Flint and I sat down with her … and told her about what was going on, what was going on with the water,” he recounted. “She said, ‘If I get in office, I promise you that I will come back and help you with this water and the cancer study.’”
“As soon as she won, she came back to Detroit,” he said. “I met with her. … She kept her word and that’s why I voted for her.”
The Harris-Walz campaign’s Michigan communications director Alyssa Bradley, as well as the national campaign and Michigan Democratic Party, did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
