He has repeatedly accused three Black prosecutors investigating him of “reverse racism.” He told a gathering of Black Republicans that Black people like him because he, too, has been charged by the criminal justice system. And he has suggested that Black people relate to his mug shot.
There’s a fundamental tension in Donald J. Trump’s attempts to woo Black voters. He repeatedly traffics in stereotypes about Black Americans, yet he is counting on them, and aggressively courting them, to help him win back the White House in November.
His campaign is relying on achieving modest gains with Black voters — or peeling some away from President Biden and toward a third-party or independent candidate such as Cornel West or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and it is part of his math for 2024. Public polling shows him faring better with Black voters than any Republican presidential candidate has in decades.
Mr. Trump currently receives nearly four times the support from Black voters in polling than the 6 percent who actually voted for him in 2016, according to Pew Research Center data. He is vying for wins in states with major cities that have large Black populations, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The margins of victory are expected to be small in those four states, where Mr. Trump hopes to offset his potential weaknesses with independent voters and suburban women….
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Mr. Trump also has a lengthy history of making racist statements. In 2020, he echoed the words of a Miami police chief, saying that “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” during Black Lives Matter protests over the killing of George Floyd. He referred to African nations and Haiti as “shithole countries” during an immigration meeting at the White House. He told congresswomen of color who were born in the United States to go back to their own countries.
But Mr. Trump has privately attempted damage control when allies on the hard right have fueled the idea that he and his political movement are racist….
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“He thinks celebrating his mug shot, joking about his racist track record and hawking knockoff sneakers that nobody would be caught dead wearing is his path to victory with Black voters,” Mr. Tyler said. “But he’s running headfirst into a dead end of racist stupidity.”
Some Democratic pollsters say that private surveys show Mr. Trump with less support among Black voters than public polling…
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As the crowd cheered, he added, “That’s how far I’ve come. That’s a long — that’s a long way, isn’t it?”
The crowd cheered again after he ridiculed Mr. Obama over the cost of a proposed new Air Force One program years ago.
“Would you rather have the Black president, or the white president who got $1.7 billion off the price?” he said. “I think they want the white guy.”….
The GOP’s Plan to Win Over Black Men Is a Mess
NOTUS: “Republicans want to court Black male voters, but absent any clear infrastructure from the Republican National Committee, prominent Black leaders say they are devising strategies of their own.”