Political pollsters and a Trump campaign aide laid out a hypothetical strategy Tuesday to Politico entailing how by gaining black supporters, and disenfranchised whites in the “Rust Belt,” Donald Trump could take the White House in November.
Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, told the Roslyn based newsletter that black voters, “listen to [Trump]. They find him fascinating, and in all the groups I have done, I have found Obama voters, they could’ve voted for Obama twice, but if they’re African-American they would consider Trump.”
The broad support Trump receives from rappers has already been well documented. Luntz believes, “If he were the Republican nominee he would get the highest percentage of black votes since Ronald Reagan in 1980.” Reagan received 14 percent of the black vote that year.
The Donald has been making a conscious effort to win-over the support of blacks, in November he held a meeting with over a 100 pastors, Trump described it as, “amazing,” adding that, “the meeting went so much longer, and it went longer only because of the love. It didn’t go longer for other reasons.”
The organizer of the meeting, Pastor Darrell Scott of Cleveland, told the National Review, “I’m supporting a man I know, someone who actually has the background and economic experience to lift black communities up.”
Trump throughout the race has criticized Obama for how his policies hurt black Americans, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Sunday, “We have an African-American president and the black youth, the African-American youth, has essentially all never done worse. You look at the unemployment in the ’50s. You look at African-American people that are 30 and 35 and 40, in the height of their strength and lives, and they’re doing horribly.”
A pollster, wishing to remain unnamed, told Politico that while Trump is a ultra wealthy white businessman from New York City, “he behaves in a way that most minorities would not expect a billionaire to behave,”
Scott agreed with this notion saying, “A lot of what people paint as racism — it’s not racism, it’s cultural. He’s a 69-year-old white man from upstate New York who happens to be a billionaire. And yet it’s not like he’s wearing a white sailor cap and a sweater tied around his neck, hanging out on his yacht. He’s still working hard every day, putting in office hours.”
A September poll had Trump winning 25 percent of the black vote in a hypothetical matchup against Hillary.
The path to the White House for Trump would also involve outreach to voters who previously would not have supported GOP tickets.
“We’re going to bring in states like New York, that are never in play for Republicans, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio we’re going to win, we’re going to win Florida…We’re going to bring a lot of states in, that a traditional politician is never going to even go to to visit,” said Trump at a press conference in Iowa Tuesday.
His campaign manager, Corey Lewandwoski, told Politico that Trump would outperform Republican nominees in “rust belt” states due to his policies rejecting free trade. Lewandowski believes that Trump could even expand the electoral map to include traditionally Democratic strongholds such as Illinois and California.
“I’m unwilling to write Trump off any more. It’s foolish,” said pollster Frank Luntz.
