Is President Trump Making a Case That Will Attract Black Voters from the Democratic Party

President Donald Trump recently reprised one of the phrases many Black Americans found offensive four years ago during his campaign for the White House, “What the hell do you have to lose [if you vote for me]?” Trump repeated the remark even as he made clear overtures to African American voters.

Days after President Trump spent millions for the Super Bowl ad touting his criminal justice reform policies, he followed up with an announcement naming Tony Lowden as the ‘reentry czar’ which means Lowden will oversee the government’s efforts to assist former prisoners adjusting to life after incarceration.

“Too many of our men and women are ending up in our prisons and coming home with nothing to get back on their feet,” said Lowden, who is Black and the pastor of former president Jimmy Carter’s church in Plains, Georgia.

“It’s very clear that this is a direct effort to reach out to African American voters, not just by him but also a move for the Republican Party,” said Holli Holliday, founder and president of Sisters Lead Sisters Vote. “Even before he was President, we saw the Koch Brothers make and continue to make large investments in formerly incarcerated persons and criminal justice overall, and this is a continuation of a strategy that predates him.”

State of the Strategy

President Trump’s State of the Union address last week demonstrated his strategy to appeal to Blacks by placing Tuskegee Airman, Charles McGee, who the President promoted earlier that day to Brigadier General in the spotlight. Trump also singled out Tony Rankins, a veteran recovering from drug addiction whose personal trajectory ticked upward after landing a job in an Opportunity Zone, a designation created by the 2017 tax cuts to encourage investment in lower income areas. And, the President recognized the potentially crucial power of school choice when he awarded a scholarship to Philadelphia fourth-grader Janiyah Davis who had been waitlisted for a charter school and was currently “trapped in failing government schools”.

Trump also pointed out during his address that unemployment among African Americans is the lowest in history. The group, African American Conservatives, underscored the milestone with a social media post that criticized the Democratic Party, writing, “How then do they explain that wages for African American workers are actually going up?”

“I support Donald Trump because he has kept all of his promises to the American people, and he is for all Americans, black Americans, all Americans,” said an unidentified supporter seen on the Facebook post. “And, he loves his country, and he stands with the Christian people, and I definitely give him my support, and I am so proud he is our President.”

Holliday, who is a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., explains the apparent election strategy the White House is employing.

“I attended the Congressional Black Caucus Town Hall last Monday where one of the things that was shared was polling information that told and confirmed what we already knew,” she said. “Democrats need Black voters to turn out, and if we vote below 90%, then Republicans win. That’s the math.”

The math is no secret to the Trump campaign. When the Black Voices for Trump coalition launched in November from Atlanta, President Trump pledged to garner 95% of the African American vote on Election Day. But, convincing African Americans to vote for Trump will be an uphill battle. A November 2019 poll by Gallup showed Trump with a “10% approval rating among blacks in 2017, 11% in 2018, and 10% so far in 2019.” And, courting the African American vote historically has not paid off for Republicans. A review of the voting data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research shows that Trump only received 8% of the Black vote in 2016 which is two percentage points less than the 10% average Republican presidential candidates have claimed since 1976.

Holliday states, “To be clear, their strategy is not to take us over, it’s just to peel us off.”