DETROIT — Former President Donald Trump’s campaign launched its Black Voter Coalition group on Saturday, Trump’s clearest attempt yet to target a voting bloc that has overwhelmingly supported Democrats in recent elections but has been unusually open in public polls for Trump.
The announcement came ahead of a community roundtable at 180 Church, a predominantly Black worship center in Detroit. Among the black Republicans at the Trump event were former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Reps. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and John James, R-Mich. Trump said at the event that Donalds “happens to be on the list of potential vice presidents,” and asked the crowd, “Would anyone like to see him? I noticed your name is very high on the list.”
“Historic numbers of Black voters now support President Trump, and the reason is simple: Black voters know that President Trump is the only presidential candidate who can deliver on day one because he already has,” the Trump campaign said in a statement statement announcing the launch. of his “Black Americans for Trump” effort, touting unemployment rates and household income levels for black people during his presidency.
The new Trump coalition group marks an effort by Trump to mirror the Black outreach efforts of President Joe Biden’s campaign, which has so far invested millions of dollars in hiring, organizing and paying media outlets solely designed to promote Black involve the voting base.
The Biden-Harris campaign launched its own Black voter coalition group, “Black Voters for Biden-Harris,” in Philadelphia in late May. The event marked a rare joint appearance by both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, both of whom credited Black voters as crucial to their 2020 victory.
At that event, Biden and Harris sought to portray Trump as a threat to Black American progress and skewered several of Trump’s past controversies.
“What do you think he would have done on January 6 if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol,” Biden said at the event. “I don’t think he’ll talk about pardons. This is the same man who wanted to gas you when you peacefully protested the murder of George Floyd. The same man who still calls the Central Park Five guilty even though they have been acquitted.”
In a statement, Biden-Harris spokesperson Jasmine Harris said: “Donald Trump thinks having ‘many black friends’ is an excuse for a lifetime of denigrating and disrespecting black Americans, but black voters know better – and Trump’s eleventh attempt to ‘outreach’ Black Americans is fooling no one.”
In a recent television ad, the Biden campaign also suggested that Trump was an “enemy” to black voters. The former president has been referred to as “a textbook racist who disrespects and attacks the black community every chance he gets.”
Yet during the Detroit roundtable, Trump portrayed Biden as the threat to Black Americans, citing his role in crafting the 1994 crime bill.
“He’s walking around now talking about the black vote – he’s the king of the ‘super-predators,’” Trump said. “He wrote the 1994 crime bill that you all talk about so much, I think everyone here knows that, especially if you’re black.”
Supporters of the former president say the current political climate is conducive to Trump making inroads among black voters, and the launch of Trump’s coalition group is the latest effort to appeal to younger black men in particular, who appear more willing to hear his message.
Trump’s black outreach this election cycle began in February when he headlined the Black Conservative Federation’s annual gala ahead of the Republican primaries in South Carolina.
The group plans to continue supporting the former president’s Black outreach efforts. The Black Conservative Federation held a free community barbecue ahead of Trump’s event in Detroit and plans to hold similar events throughout June while accompanying Trump to events in cities with large Black populations.
It was at that Black Conservative Federation event in February that Trump first began pushing a now-popular narrative among Republicans that his lawsuits could broaden his appeal among black voters.
“I was sued a second time, a third time, a fourth time, and a lot of people said that’s why black people like me, because they’ve been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they basically saw me as I was.” I am being discriminated against,” Trump said at the time.
Months later, Trump’s belief in that theory has only grown stronger. The former president held one of his more racially diverse rallies in the Bronx, New York, in the waning days of New York’s hush money trial.
This belief has also been perpetuated in part by Trump’s support from popular black cultural figures, including rappers Sexxy Red, Kodak Black, and 50 Cent. During a visit to the Capitol last month, 50 Cent spoke about Trump’s position toward black men.
“I see them identifying with Trump… because they got RICO charges,” the rapper said.
Trump recently enlisted local rappers to attend his events. Detroit rapper Sada Baby, whose 2020 single “Whole Lotta Choppas” went viral on TikTok, was invited by Trump’s campaign to attend the roundtable event in Detroit.
But other Black voters have been turned off by Trump’s claim that community members identify more with him because of his overlapping lawsuits, suggesting the claim is at best rooted in stereotypes and at worst racist. Undecided black voters who spoke to NBC News as part of a focus group in February said they found the comment offensive.
“I don’t know of any African-American men who have paid hush money to cover up sexual infidelity,” said El-Mahdi Holly of Georgia. “It would be to his benefit to realize that we are not engaging in the types of activities that he has been involved in broadly.”
Following the closure of several Republican National Committee minority centers earlier this year, some black Republicans had privately expressed concerns about the campaign’s lack of infrastructure in predominantly black cities and the effect it could have on newly interested black voters in Trump.
James, the Michigan congressman, said he told Trump “years ago” at a White House meeting that Republicans had not previously “invested enough” in Black outreach to see returns.
“We have to show up and that’s why we’re here today,” James said. “We must be like the original Republicans who were willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of freedom.”
Before the launch of Trump’s coalition group, Trump’s black outreach had largely focused on quick stops at businesses in largely black areas, including a stop at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, where he was greeted by several students from historically black colleges and universities. universities.
Michaelah Montgomery, an organizer of that Chick-fil-A visit that went viral for her embrace of Trump, said some HBCU students who were pictured with Trump later faced bullying and ostracism from some of their peers .
“My students faced relentless bullying when news broke of our meeting at CFA. They were ostracized by their peers, donors threatened to withdraw their donations, people said they were an embarrassment to their institutions,” says Montgomery.
Now many black supporters of the president feel a shift has occurred. Trump hosted nearly a dozen HBCU students from Atlanta for dinner at his Florida resort earlier this month.
Trump’s campaign to win over black voters will be boosted by several of his allies, including several vice presidential candidates.
Senator Tim Scott announced a $14 million dollar “full-fledged” black voter outreach campaign that will focus on targeting low-propensity black, Latino voters in battleground states ahead of the election.
Donalds and fellow Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, held a “Congress, Cognac & Cigars” event in Philadelphia earlier this month for a “real conversation about the voice of black men.” The two will hold a similar event in Atlanta later this month.
And Trump plans to hold his next rally in Philadelphia this Saturday, an event that will be another opportunity for the former president to sharpen his message to black voters.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
