Lower Voter Turnout Among Black Americans in 2016 Was ”Cause They Liked Me'” Trump Says In Leaked Audio

A parade of African American politicans appeared onstage at the Republican National Convention, touting President Donald Trump’s character, leadership, and commitment to improving the lives of Black Americans.

A recently leaked audiotape made in 2017 during Trump’s visit with a group of civil rights leaders days before his inauguration reveals him acknowledging that low voter turnout for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton benefited him, saying, “Many Blacks didn’t go out to vote for Hillary ’cause they liked me.  It  was almost as good as getting the vote, you know, and it was great.” 

The founder of The Black Male Voting Project, W. Mondale Robinson said, “Trump’s comment about Black voters’ turnout in the 2016 presidential election wasn’t only repugnant, but the comment exposes his lack of understanding for how voters are mobilized, engaged and persuaded to vote.”

Robinson, who has consulted on state and national campaigns, has trained his sights on connecting with Black male voters, who are expected to figure prominently in November’s election.

“Black voters, and Black men specifically, aren’t interested in the transactional nature of traditional campaigns and this was the reason for lower turnout amongst Black voters, not because of like or love for him,” Robinson explained.

The comments Trump made add more skepticism to his latest efforts to dissuade Americans from mail-in voting with a thinly veiled plan to compromise the efficiency of the United States Postal Service with new guidelines imposed by Postmaster Louis DeJoy, a Republican donor. Mail sorting machines have been removed and collection boxes were being rounded up around the country until Democrats called DeJoy to Capitol Hill for a hearing during which he agreed to hold off on reorganizing the Postal Service until after the 2020 election.

Voting rights activists are wary of Trump’s accusations that mail-in voting is plagued by fraud especially when many Americans are considering it instead of visiting a polling place during a pandemic. 

Black Voter Turnout Is Key

A high turnout among African Americans tends to help Democrats. But over the summer, polls indicated that more White Americans said they were planning to vote this fall than Black Americans. In a study of the six closest states that Trump won, CNN reports that the New York Times/Siena College poll had White voters as 4 points more likely to say they were voting than Black voters. College-educated white voters favored Democratic candidate Joe Biden over Trump, according to the poll; and, they were more supportive of Black Lives Matter protests than conservative whites who were generally not supportive of Biden. But, the poll found that older white voters were not as loyal to Trump as in 2016 and Trump’s support was dwindling among White voters which may explain the unabashed appeal made to Black voters during Republican National Convention this week. 

But, organizations like the Black Male Voting Project and Sisters Lead Sisters Vote have worked for months mobilizing voters for the fall election.

“Although Black voters typically only make up 12-14% of overall voters, they comprise an important margin in battleground states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and others,” Holli Holliday, president of Sisters Lead Sisters Vote. “Black voters are consistent Democratic voters but they are NOT blind Democratic voters.  They tend to vote Democratic because the issues and priorities reflected by the Democratic Party most closely align to their interests.  Additionally, Black people are visibly represented throughout the party structure, as delegates, officers and elected officials.”

Holliday acknowledges that “about 13 percent” of Black men supported Trump in the last election, and she says the Republican Party hopes to “exploit the concerns” Black voters have with Democrats, convincing them to sit out the election.

Younger African American voters are considered the least likely to vote, and efforts are underway to engage them using “peer-to-peer contact along with media and social influencers”, Holliday offers. 

With President Trump wrapping up the RNC Thursday night amid a week of protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, there are little more than two months until the most consequential election in a generation, and African Americans may very well play the deciding role.