Project 2025 and voting rights: Fact-checking Kamala Harris’ ad aimed at Black Americans

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, warned in an ad that Project 2025, a conservative guidebook of presidential policy recommendations, would harm Black Americans, including at the voting booth. “Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda will give him unchecked political power with no guardrails,” said the TV ad that began airing in early September, targeting Black Americans in battleground states. “And it would take Black America backwards. Project 2025 would strip away our voting rights protections.” The ad included no citations or explanations about its voter protections claims. When we asked the Harris campaign for evidence, it pointed to specific pages in Project 2025 about the Justice Department, voter fraud and the U.S. Census Bureau. (Project 2025 is not a Trump campaign document.) Project 2025 calls for more aggressive voter fraud enforcement; whether these changes would limit Black Americans’ voting rights is a speculative stretch. The project document provides few details about its voting rights recommendations, making it hard to find expert consensus on the consequences for voting access. This ad differs from others that broadly attack Project 2025 because it speaks directly to Black voters, said Andra Gillespie, an Emory University professor and expert on African American politics. Harris...