Addressing a crowd in Dimondale, Michigan, Donald Trump aimed to win over African Americans – or at least convince them that they shouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton.
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“And I want our party to be the home of the African-American voter once again”.
Donald Trump’s recent overtures to African-Americans has been met with skepticism by many voters.
Similarly, while more than four in 10 Democrats say they wished someone other than Clinton were their party’s nominee, only about two in 10 view Clinton unfavourably, Gallup noted. He began by reciting the common conservative refrain that black communities had suffered under Democratic leadership.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made a direct appeal to African-American voters, saying “What do you have to lose?”
While Trump did bring in a new set of advisers in the past week, it appears all but certain his comeback strategy can not benefit from the proven building blocks of winning campaigns, especially when compared with the structure Clinton has assembled. “What do you have to lose?” he asked.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Sacred Heart University, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016, in Fairfield, Connecticut.
She later fired back in a tweet calling Trump’s remarks “so ignorant it’s staggering”.
“Hillary Clinton is banking on her friend Terry McAuliffe on getting thousands of violent felons to the voting booths in effort to cancel out the votes of both law enforcement and crime victims”, Trump said as the audience booed.
Marshall said, “Trump painting the entire community as living in poverty with no jobs continues to show he is completely out of touch with the African-American community”.
Even supposing that Trump misspoke or was misunderstood, it’s perverse to imagine that blacks will not have their radar activated when Trump relentlessly derides other minorities.
Trump later accused Clinton of wanting to give jobs to refugees rather than unemployed African-Americans in the United States, saying they have “become refugees in their own country”.
While this argument might strike black voters as breathtakingly offensive at worst and patronizing at best, Trump seems pretty confident in its effectiveness.
For Trump’s team, the meeting came as he has tried to be more disciplined and on message as he seeks to reset his campaign against Clinton for the November 8 election. “I see love everywhere I go”, Trump said.
But he saved his one-two punch for the end, his big bid to gain the confidence of black voters. At a Baptist church later, a woman screamed “We knew you would be here for us!” as he and Pence sat down with volunteers.
He has done no better with African Americans.
“It’s also presidential today to have him and Gov. Pence going to Louisiana in a decidedly nonpolitical event”, she told ABC, adding that they would be “going to help people on the ground who are in need”.
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She also said Trump’s characterization of black communities as rife with poverty and joblessness was “off base”.
