Trump tells black voters that Democrats have only let them down and his words are making an impact
An increasing number of black voters have started tilting towards President Donald Trump and some of them even raised funds for his predecessor Barack Obama’s campaign in the past. One of the notables among those voters is former NFL player Jack Brewer.
According to a report in the Washington Times, black voters have started feeling that the Democrats have only given them lip service and according to Brewer, an awakening is happening in the US at the moment. “I’m going to take the guy who’s actually putting in the policies that are going to make life better for my young black son and my young black daughter, versus somebody who gives me lip service — like, unfortunately, the Democrats have done for our community for years,” he was quoted as saying.
Trump, who is seeking re-election in 2020, is courting the black voters when the economy is doing well and the unemployment rate in the community has gone down to 5.5 percent, the lowest history has seen. The president’s campaign launched its “Black Voices for Trump” coalition in Atlanta in early November.
Trump had won only eight percent of the black votes in 2016 but yet the coalition is not something which is being overlooked. Trump was joined at the group’s launch by his deputy Mike Pence and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. Even some of his most prominent black supporters like former presidential candidate Herman Cain was present.
On the occasion, Trump told his black supporters that the Democrats have let them down. “They’ve dismissed you. They’ve hurt you. They’ve sabotaged you for far too long,” he said.
The campaign has also funded for full-page, full-color advertisements promoting Trump in a number of local black newspapers across the country besides radio stations. There is evidence that the effort is paying off. Last month, as many as three polls showed a significant rise in Trump’s job-approval rating among the blacks (between 30 and 35 percent). Generally, surveys have shown that approval rate to be less than 10 percent.
While seeing a drastic rise in the black voters’ support might not be as easy as it seems, Trump’s campaign members feel optimistic that his policies have produced “extraordinary” results for the black people.
“One thing the president’s done is to try to govern for everybody. Even those who didn’t vote for him in the last election are now seeing a lot of results in their communities, and we’re seeing the poll numbers amongst all those groups grow in a way that creates a lot of opportunities,” the Times quoted another Trump official as saying. Trump’s advisers feel measures like criminal justice reform and rise in funding for black educational institutes are also helping the president’s outreach to the black people.
Brewer, a lifelong Democrat, even said that Trump is working harder than any Republican candidate to reach out to the black voters. He said Trump will get over 20 percent of the black votes and it will make a difference in the election.
'More jobs created for blacks since Trump took over'
A recent report from the Brookings Institution, known to be liberal, said that five metropolitan areas in the US having the largest black population — New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Washington DC — have seen black median household incomes rising from seven percent in Washington to 21 percent in Atlanta. Trump campaign officials said over 1.4 million new jobs have been created for black workers since Trump’s inauguration.
Addressing young conservative supporters at a Florida conference hosted by Turning Point USA last weekend, Trump said he is “so proud of what we’ve done with African American and Hispanic American [employment] numbers.” He added that the Democrats have abandoned black people. “Before the election, they start courting” black voters, the president said. “The election is over and then they leave them. We did just the opposite. What we’ve done for Hispanic, for African American, for minorities — what we’ve done is unprecedented,” he added.