NEW YORK – Following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance on CNN against Donald Trump on June 27, Irwine Clare was ready to throw in the towel and concede an inevitable victory for Trump in the November 5 presidential election.
But when Biden announced three weeks later that he would not seek re-election, and endorsed vice president Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, Clare’s outlook changed.
Irwine Clare, Sr, CEO of TJB (file photo)
“From a Caribbean perspective, it is one of exultation and excitement. Indeed, it has brought a renewed sense of interest in the whole election cycle,” said New York-based Clare, a stalwart of the Jamaica Diaspora in the tri-state region.
Harris’ father, Donald Harris, is Jamaican and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. Her mother Shyamala Gopalan, who was from India, died in 2009.
The vice president, who addresses the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 22, has reinvigorated a flailing Democrat campaign, with most polls showing her and Trump in a tight race. Trump, the 45th president, was beaten by Biden in the 2020 election.
Clare, who has lived in the US for over 40 years, believes the Caribbean vote in Florida and Georgia will have an impact. Florida went to Trump four years ago while Biden carried Georgia.
There is a massive Caribbean presence in South Florida, while Atlanta, Decatur, Conyers and Stone Mountain are areas in Georgia where they are strongly represented.
“There are strong structures in South Florida, and this is an opportune time for those structures to deliver because Florida could determine the elections. So too Georgia, they are critical to this election,” Clare stated.
Harris, 59, campaigned in South Florida four years ago, meeting with Caribbean leaders and doing radio interviews. Last March, she visited Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland — where 14 students were killed in 2018 — to discuss gun violence.
The vice president was scheduled to visit Palm Beach County in July but postponed that event after an assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania. She is scheduled to debate Trump on September 10 in Philadelphia on ABC News.
