Outreach program seeks to widen president’s base
WASHINGTON — Selfies on a “Women for Trump” bus tour through Iowa. Volunteer training at a “Black Voices for Trump” organizing session in Philadelphia. A vice presidential headliner at a “Latinos for Trump” event in Florida.
President Trump’s surrogates fanned out across the country this week in a show of force that is part of an aggressive — and uphill — effort to stretch his appeal beyond the base of workingclass white voters who propelled him to victory in 2016.
With a recognition that Trump will need to turn out new voters in November to be reelected, his campaign has dramatically stepped up outreach efforts to various constituencies, including African Americans, Latinos and women, building a coalition operation that officials believe is the most robust of any Republican campaign in history.
The outreach marks a dramatic departure from 2016, when Trump’s volunteer “National Diversity Coalition” struggled to make an impact.
“There’s no comparison between 2016 and now,” said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh of the effort. He described the outreach as “a significant department unto itself,” complete with dedicated staff, resources and a budget that is expected to reach tens of millions of dollars.
“These are all wellfinanced, wellorganized coalitions intended to reach out to the voters that they’re targeting. And we know that no Republican campaign or president has ever had as muscular a coalitions outreach,” he said.
The operation was in full force Thursday when the president’s daughterinlaw, Lara Trump, senior campaign adviser Mercedes Schlapp and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany began a twoday “Women for Trump” bus tour through Iowa aimed at engaging women with training sessions, round tables and panel discussions. The tour comes less than three weeks before Democrats will begin to cast their first nominating ballots in the state’s kickoff caucuses.
Meanwhile, in mustwin Florida, Vice President Mike Pence headlined a “Latinos for Trump” event in Kissimmee at Nacion de Fe, an evangelical church with a mostly Latino congregation as part of his own bus tour.
“We’re going to get four more years and Latinos for Trump are going to lead the way,” he told the about 400 people in attendance, emphasizing the country’s low Latino unemployment rate and the administration’s antiabortion stance.
Trump won just 6% of black voters in the last election, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. And polling shows 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.
Trump also lost by wide margins among Latinos and women, who continue to lag behind men in their support for the president.