GOP rising star tapped for tonight
Balt. House hopeful
Republican congressional candidate Kimberly Klacik — whose video about “the reality for black people” in Baltimore took her to viral fame — will speak on Monday at the Republican National Convention, officials announced Sunday.
Klacik, who is running for the late Rep. Elijah Cummings’ seat, caught the president’s attention with her widely viewed Web ad, in which she blames Democrats who have governed the city for decades allowing it to become a cesspool of poverty and crime.
“Kimberly will work with the Trump Administration and we will bring Baltimore back, and fast,” the president tweeted on Tuesday.
“Don’t blow it Baltimore, the Democrats have destroyed your city!”
Her ad, posted to Twitter on Aug. 17, has since racked up more than 10 million views.
In the clip, she walks past boarded-up and burned-out houses and trash heaps in abandoned lots.
“This is the reality for black people every single day: crumbling infrastructure, abandoned homes, poverty and crime. Baltimore has been run by the Democrat Party for 53 years. What is the result of their decades of leadership?” she says in the video.
“It’s not just Baltimore, the worst place for a black person to live in America is a Democratcontrolled city. It’s 2020, name a blue city where black people’s lives have gotten better,” she said, adding, “Black people don’t have to vote Democrat.”
She is running against Rep. Kweisi Mfume, the former head of the NAACP.
Also speaking at the convention will be New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew — who jumped from the Democratic Party to the GOP in December.
He is set to speak on Thursday, the convention’s final night.
Van Drew, whose district went for Trump in 2016 by a 5 percent margin, said in his party-switching announcement that he didn’t think the president’s dealings with Ukraine warranted impeachment.