Donald Trump, Joe Biden push to attract Black, Latino voters
President Joe Biden at the commencement ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta on May 19. Credit: TNS/Arvin Temkar
WASHINGTON — At a campaign rally on Thursday in the South Bronx, former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, sought to capitalize on national polls showing he is making modest inroads with Black voters.
Trump, who had not held a campaign rally in New York since 2016, took his reelection message to a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood on Thursday, telling the crowd at Crotona Park that Democratic President Joe Biden’s policies were endangering their livelihood.
“African Americans are getting slaughtered. Hispanic Americans are getting slaughtered,” Trump said of Biden’s economic and immigration policies.
Before Trump's rally, Biden’s campaign had fired off preemptive shots — reminding voters in two radio and TV ads that Trump was sued for housing discrimination against Black applicants in the 1970s, and pushed for the death penalty for five Black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly convicted of raping a woman in Central Park in the 1980s.
“His actions then and his continued rhetoric today reveal a deep-seated disdain for Black and Latino lives,” New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam said in a statement released by the Biden campaign. Salaam was a member of the “Central Park Five,” who were exonerated in the rape case.
The back-and-forth between both campaigns over their records with Black and Latino voters reflects a new push by Trump and Biden to shore up support among minority voters in a tight race where most polls show them in a statistical dead heat overall.
Biden, whose 2020 victory was propelled to a significant degree by support from Black voters — long a reliable Democratic voting base — has seen slight erosion in his support among Black voters, according to recent national and swing state polls.
He leads Trump by double-digit margins among Black voters. But political analysts say any inroads made by Trump or third-party candidates with such voters, however modest, could change outcomes in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia that Biden won four years ago.
“The problem [the Biden campaign] faces is in places like Georgia and other states where they have large numbers of African American voters — they need to win big,” Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic campaign strategist based in Manhattan, told Newsday.
A series of New York Times/Siena College polls conducted this month in key battleground states found 20% of Black voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin reported they planned to vote for Trump in November. Such levels of support, if they hold up on Election Day, would be the highest a GOP presidential candidate has received from Black voters since enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the Times.
Biden won 92% of the Black vote in 2020, compared with Trump’s 8%. But an NBC News analysis of national polls that were released in April showed Trump with the support of 18% of Black voters, compared with 9% during the same period in 2020. Biden had the support of 69% of Black voters, compared with 76% during the same period in 2020.
No GOP presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1960 has won more than 13% of the Black vote, according to an analysis by American National Election Studies, a coalition of universities that reviews historical election data. The analysis indicates that Black support for Republican presidential candidates over the past 40 years averages just under 6%.
Republican campaign strategist Michael Dawidziak, who worked for the presidential campaigns of the late President George H.W. Bush, told Newsday that polls don’t necessarily reflect an outpouring of support for Trump — but instead highlight disenchantment with Biden over inflation and rising housing costs.
“I think they're probably more likely to stay home than vote Republican, which is just as dangerous for Biden,” said Dawidziak, who is based in Bohemia. “If they’re feeling disenchanted with their choices and stay home in key parts of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, then that could be enough to turn these states Republican.”
Over the past two weeks, Biden has headlined a series of events aimed at galvanizing the Black vote. He addressed Black civic leaders at a reception at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., spoke at the commencement at Morehouse College, a historically Black college in Atlanta, and delivered a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Detroit.
Trey Baker, a senior Biden campaign adviser, said in a statement that the events and ongoing outreach to Black voters are meant to convey “this campaign will not take a single voter for granted.”
Baker continued: “We are not, and will not, parachute into these communities at the last minute, expecting their vote.”
Trump, meanwhile, has sought to use New York City neighborhoods as campaign stops, dedicating free time from his hush money criminal trial in Manhattan for appearances such as a news conference outside a Harlem bodega where he railed against crime rates in the city.
“The Biden campaign is panicking because they see that Black voters aren’t buying what Biden is selling, and President Trump is receiving a record high support in the polls from Black voters that we haven’t seen in decades,” Trump campaign Black media director Janiyah Thomas said in a statement.
Even as Trump tries to make inroads with minority voters, his campaign also has had to defend the posting of a video to Trump’s account on his social media network that included a references to a “unified reich” among hypothetical headlines if he wins the election in November. The term brought denouncements from Biden and others for its association with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
Trump’s campaign said the video was posted by a junior campaign aide who was unaware the word was present in the video. It was later deleted amid the backlash, but Biden’s campaign branded the video as Trump’s latest display of divisive language.
“America, stop scrolling and pay attention. Donald Trump is not playing games; he is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a 'unified reich,'” Biden campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement.
WASHINGTON — At a campaign rally on Thursday in the South Bronx, former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, sought to capitalize on national polls showing he is making modest inroads with Black voters.
Trump, who had not held a campaign rally in New York since 2016, took his reelection message to a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood on Thursday, telling the crowd at Crotona Park that Democratic President Joe Biden’s policies were endangering their livelihood.
“African Americans are getting slaughtered. Hispanic Americans are getting slaughtered,” Trump said of Biden’s economic and immigration policies.
Before Trump's rally, Biden’s campaign had fired off preemptive shots — reminding voters in two radio and TV ads that Trump was sued for housing discrimination against Black applicants in the 1970s, and pushed for the death penalty for five Black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly convicted of raping a woman in Central Park in the 1980s.
WHAT TO KNOW
- The back-and-forth between Joe Biden and Donald Trump over their records with Black and Latino voters reflects a push by both candidates to boost support among minority voters in a tight presidential race.
- Most polls show Biden and Trump in a statistical dead heat overall.
- Biden has seen a small erosion of support among Black voters, polls show. Any inroads by Trump or third-party candidates could change outcomes in swing states won by Biden four years ago.
“His actions then and his continued rhetoric today reveal a deep-seated disdain for Black and Latino lives,” New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam said in a statement released by the Biden campaign. Salaam was a member of the “Central Park Five,” who were exonerated in the rape case.
The back-and-forth between both campaigns over their records with Black and Latino voters reflects a new push by Trump and Biden to shore up support among minority voters in a tight race where most polls show them in a statistical dead heat overall.
Biden, whose 2020 victory was propelled to a significant degree by support from Black voters — long a reliable Democratic voting base — has seen slight erosion in his support among Black voters, according to recent national and swing state polls.
He leads Trump by double-digit margins among Black voters. But political analysts say any inroads made by Trump or third-party candidates with such voters, however modest, could change outcomes in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia that Biden won four years ago.
“The problem [the Biden campaign] faces is in places like Georgia and other states where they have large numbers of African American voters — they need to win big,” Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic campaign strategist based in Manhattan, told Newsday.
A series of New York Times/Siena College polls conducted this month in key battleground states found 20% of Black voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin reported they planned to vote for Trump in November. Such levels of support, if they hold up on Election Day, would be the highest a GOP presidential candidate has received from Black voters since enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the Times.
Biden won 92% of the Black vote in 2020, compared with Trump’s 8%. But an NBC News analysis of national polls that were released in April showed Trump with the support of 18% of Black voters, compared with 9% during the same period in 2020. Biden had the support of 69% of Black voters, compared with 76% during the same period in 2020.
No GOP presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1960 has won more than 13% of the Black vote, according to an analysis by American National Election Studies, a coalition of universities that reviews historical election data. The analysis indicates that Black support for Republican presidential candidates over the past 40 years averages just under 6%.
Republican campaign strategist Michael Dawidziak, who worked for the presidential campaigns of the late President George H.W. Bush, told Newsday that polls don’t necessarily reflect an outpouring of support for Trump — but instead highlight disenchantment with Biden over inflation and rising housing costs.
“I think they're probably more likely to stay home than vote Republican, which is just as dangerous for Biden,” said Dawidziak, who is based in Bohemia. “If they’re feeling disenchanted with their choices and stay home in key parts of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, then that could be enough to turn these states Republican.”
Over the past two weeks, Biden has headlined a series of events aimed at galvanizing the Black vote. He addressed Black civic leaders at a reception at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., spoke at the commencement at Morehouse College, a historically Black college in Atlanta, and delivered a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Detroit.
Trey Baker, a senior Biden campaign adviser, said in a statement that the events and ongoing outreach to Black voters are meant to convey “this campaign will not take a single voter for granted.”
Baker continued: “We are not, and will not, parachute into these communities at the last minute, expecting their vote.”
Donald Trump speaks to the crowd at his campaign rally in Crotona Park in the Bronx on Thursday evening. Credit: ED QUINN
Trump, meanwhile, has sought to use New York City neighborhoods as campaign stops, dedicating free time from his hush money criminal trial in Manhattan for appearances such as a news conference outside a Harlem bodega where he railed against crime rates in the city.
“The Biden campaign is panicking because they see that Black voters aren’t buying what Biden is selling, and President Trump is receiving a record high support in the polls from Black voters that we haven’t seen in decades,” Trump campaign Black media director Janiyah Thomas said in a statement.
Even as Trump tries to make inroads with minority voters, his campaign also has had to defend the posting of a video to Trump’s account on his social media network that included a references to a “unified reich” among hypothetical headlines if he wins the election in November. The term brought denouncements from Biden and others for its association with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
Trump’s campaign said the video was posted by a junior campaign aide who was unaware the word was present in the video. It was later deleted amid the backlash, but Biden’s campaign branded the video as Trump’s latest display of divisive language.
“America, stop scrolling and pay attention. Donald Trump is not playing games; he is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a 'unified reich,'” Biden campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement.
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
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