WASHINGTON, Oct 12, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Kamala Harris is making a major push for male voters, after an appeal by Barack Obama to Black men to drop sexist attitudes highlighted a key issue for the Democrat in next month's US presidential election.

As polls show Donald Trump maintaining a lead among men, Harris and her campaign are appealing to them to shun the Republican's macho "bullying" and back the vice president instead.

A New York Times/Siena survey of likely male voters earlier this week showed Republican former president Trump with a substantial lead over Harris, by 51 percent to 40 percent.

Harris rarely mentions her gender despite being America's first female vice president, preferring to avoid making it a central issue in her campaign.

But now there are signs that she is being forced to address the issue anyway.

On Tuesday, Harris will appear at a town hall in Detroit with Charlamagne Tha God, a comedian and radio host whose show is popular with young, Black male voters.

She is also deploying running mate Tim Walz, a folksy Midwestern former football coach, in a bid to reach out to male voters with less than four weeks until election day on November 5.

Walz has appeared at football games and regularly talks about his love of hunting.

And their campaign this week launched "Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz" in a clear pitch to male voters.

The Harris campaign also said it would unleash "Big Dog Bill Clinton" to woo younger Black men in southern battleground states next week -- despite his history of sex scandals.

But it was Obama's comments to "the brothers" as he made his first appearance on the campaign trail for Harris on Thursday that made it clear that Democrats are concerned.

- 'Do better with men' –

Saying he had some "truths" that he wanted the Black community to hear at a campaign field office in Pittsburgh, Obama said that "you're coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I've got a problem with that."

"Because part of it makes me think -- and I'm speaking to men directly -- part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president."

Republican former president Trump has long had a strong base among white men, but polls show he has recently garnered signficant support among Black men -- and Hispanic men too.

A poll by the NAACP in September showed 63 percent of Black voters backed Harris over 13 percent for Trump -- but while support for Harris among Black women was at 67 percent, it fell to 49 percent among Black men under 50.

While Trump has recently been stepping up his machismo-drenched pitch to young men on right-wing podcasts, Harris has also been reaching out.

Last week, she appeared on former "shock jock" turned pro-Harris radio host Howard Stern's show where she talked about her love of Formula One.

"She should try to do better with men than she is currently doing," Sarah Longwell, a conservative strategist and executive director of Republican Voters Against Trump, said in an interview with the Playbook Deep Dive podcast.

She pointed to figures in a recent Harvard-Harris poll showing that 18 to 29-year-old men backed Harris by 17 points while women did so 47 points for Harris, adding: "That's a big gap."

"It is the men. It is Hispanic men. It is Black men, which means it is part of this bigger cultural thing with men," she said.

It's not just Harris who is chasing voters of the opposite gender, however.

Next week, Trump will hold a town hall with women, despite his own history of sex scandals and as Democrats hammer him for his stance on abortion.