With eyes on 2020, Trump launches black outreach
ATLANTA — During the 2016 campaign, candidate Donald Trump stood in front of largely white crowds and asked black voters to consider, “What the hell do you have to lose?”
Trump offered that same message Friday as he launched a black voters coalition in Atlanta. While Trump’s campaign had said his message would focus on his record and gains for black Americans under his watch, Trump instead spent most of his time demonizing Democrats and appearing to try to pit minority voters against immigrants.
“The Democrats have let you down,” Trump told the crowd of several hundred supporters, including several who wore red “BLACK LIVES MAGA” hats. “They’ve dismissed you. They’ve hurt you. They’ve sabotaged you for far too long.”
Trump spoke at the launch of a new “Black Voices for Trump” outreach initiative dedicated to “recruiting and activating Black Americans in support of President Trump,” according to the campaign.
Trump predicted he would win reelection in 2020 with “a groundswell of support from hardworking African American patriots.”
Such a prediction has been met with skepticism from critics, however, given Trump’s consistently dismal approval rating with black voters.
Trump has spent much of the last four years engaged in racially charged attacks, going after minority members of Congress, claiming “no human being” would want to live in “rodent infested,” majority-minority Baltimore and insisting there were “very fine people on both sides” of the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia, protest against white supremacists.
Shortly after landing in Georgia on Friday, Trump retweeted a call from one black supporter for submissions for a “#MAGACHALLENGE” competition featuring Trump-friendly rap songs. Trump said he would be announcing the winners and inviting them to the White House to meet with him and perform.
“I think black Americans are not the audience for these outreach efforts,” said Theodore Johnson, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice who specializes in race and politics. While Trump might be able to maintain the low level of black support he received in 2016, or perhaps expand it by 1 or 2 points, Johnson sees little evidence the president can change many minds.
“I think this is not going to move the needle at all,” he said.
Before launching the new effort, Trump met with supporters at a fundraiser that was expected to raise about $3.5 million for a joint committee benefiting the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign and the campaign of Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga. Nearby, a small group of protesters chanted, “Lock him up!”
Scores of protesters also gathered outside the convention center where Trump was speaking, chanting, “Impeach and remove.”
In 2016, 6% of black voters supported Trump, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of people who participated in its polls and were confirmed to have voted.
There is no indication his support is growing. Polling shows that African Americans continue to be overwhelmingly negative in their assessments of the president’s performance, with his approval hovering around 1 in 10 over the course of his presidency, according to Gallup.
Yet Trump’s campaign dismissed the numbers, insisting the campaign has seen favorable movement and arguing the president can increase his margins with black voters by bringing new people into the fold.
“The polls have never been favorable for Trump, and the only poll that matters is on Election Day,” said senior campaign adviser Katrina Pierson.
The campaign has launched similar coalitions for women, Latinos and veterans.