Trump campaign tried to deter millions of Black Americans from voting in 2016 presidential poll: Report
With the next presidential election just over a month away, President Donald Trump appears to embrace a new controversy. An investigation which was broadcast on Monday, September 28, by Britain's Channel 4 News has claimed that the businessman-politician's presidential campaign in 2016 tried to deter millions of Black American voters from casting their ballots by targeting them with negative (dark) ads on his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on social media platforms like Facebook.
According to the London-based channel’s analysis of the leaked campaign data that it obtained, the Trump campaign listed 3.5 million African-Americans, who were disproportionately Black, in the "deterrence" category which means it wanted those voters to stay at home on the day of the election — November 8. Although Trump got less popular votes than Clinton, he went on to become the 45th president, thanks to more electoral votes.
'Project Alamo' gathered data on millions of voters
A Texas-based digital team worked on the voter file under "Project Alamo" to gather data on millions of voters to use campaign resources to have an effect, the report said. It credits Cambridge Analytica (CA), a data analysis firm that gained unauthorized access to millions of Facebook profiles, for coming up with such a strategy.
CA faced a massive backlash in recent years following revelations that it used questionable tricks to swing elections around the world and managed to get unauthorized access to millions of profiles on Facebook. The social media giant also drew flak after the information scandal was revealed.
In March 2018, the Guardian came up with an exclusive report that said the blueprint for how CA claimed to have clinched a victory for Trump by using several social media platforms like Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. was revealed in an internal company document.
The 2016 effort of the Trump campaign focused on 16 swing states that the former narrowly won after the Black Democratic voter turnout plummeted. According to a Pew Research Center report that came out in May 2017, the Black voter turnout went down for the first time in two decades in a presidential election. From 66.6 percent in 1992 to 60.7 percent in 1996, the Black voter turnout was found to be 66.6 percent in 2012 but it then fell to 59.6 percent in 2016 — marking the biggest collapse on record.
The Trump campaign strategy was a comprehensive one. The investigation claimed that the voters were classified into eight segments. Nearly 200 million Americans were under the scanner with their domestic and economic status obtained from market research companies. One of the segments was "deterrence" and those who were placed under this were likely to vote for Clinton or not at all. They were also disproportionately Black.
'Super predator' commercial to target Hillary
The Republican's campaign, as the investigation stated, was to convince these voters against backing Clinton through "dark adverts" on their Facebook feeds and that the former secretary of state was not empathetic towards African Americans. One of the attack ads was known as the "super-predator" commercial that featured a clip of controversial remarks that Clinton made in reference to African Americans in 1996 when she was the First Lady.
Saying it was necessary "to have an organised effort against gangs" and their members, Clinton had said then: "They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators – no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heel."
In Michigan, for example, which Trump won by 10,000 votes, 15 percent of the voters are Black. But they were made to represent 33 percent of the "deterrence" category which means they were disproportionately targeted by the anti-Clinton advertising campaign. In Wisconsin, only 5.4 percent voters were Black but constituted 17 percent of the "deterrence" group.
Channel 4 said that this meant more than a third of the Black voters in the state overall — all placed in the special category and bombarded with anti-Clinton material. Tim Murtaugh, Trump campaign's communication director, dismissed the report as "fake news" and said the president instead set up a relationship of trust with African American voters. He said Trump brought criminal justice reforms and investments in the Black community to win their trust.
Trump knows he can't win if people vote, says Harris
The opponents were little convinced though. Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, an individual of color, hit back at the GOP on Monday, September 28, saying the Republicans were backing laws to suppress the voters. She said Trump knows he can't win the election if people get to vote. "Donald Trump is weak so he is throwing up every roadblock he can to try and suppress the vote. We the people cannot let him get away with it," the California senator said.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Vice President Jamal Watkins said it was shocking and troubling to know there was a covert attempt to suppress the Black votes four years ago.