Blacks continue warming to Trump as campaign outreach continues into 2020 election cycle

The 2020 Trump reelection campaign is making a significant effort to reach out to black voters and it appears to be producing results.

A trio of polling data earlier this month found that President Trump’s approval rating among black Americans had risen to between 30 and 35 percent, far higher than approval ratings for previous Republican presidents and much higher than the percentage of blacks who voted for him in 2016.

“There is an awakening going on right now in the country,” former NFL Jack Brewer, who once raised money for President Barack Obama, said of black voters who traditionally support Democrats.

“I’m going to take the guy who’s actually putting in the policies that are going to make life better for my young black son and my young black daughter, versus somebody who gives me lip service — like, unfortunately, the Democrats have done for our community for years,” Brewer told the Washington Times.

Republicans — and especially President Trump — have increasingly told black voters that Democrats they traditionally support have simply taken them for granted.

“The Democrats have let you down,” the president told black supporters last month in Atlanta, as his campaign launched  its “Black Voices for Trump” coalition.

“They’ve dismissed you. They’ve hurt you. They’ve sabotaged you for far too long,” he added.

One way the Trump administration’s policies are helping the black community is through employment. While the nation’s overall unemployment rate is 3.5 percent, the lowest in a half-century, black unemployment is at a historic low of 5.5 percent.

As part of its outreach, the Trump campaign has also bought full-page color ads in 11 local black newspapers across the nation, as well as radio spots on urban radio stations nationwide.

There is evidence that the outreach is working.

“I’ll remind you, the president received 8 percent of the black vote in 2016,” a senior Trump campaign official told the Times.

“If you look at how they attacked him for being a racist during the [2016] campaign, I think his policies have [produced] results for the black community that have been extraordinary,” the campaign official added during a recent press briefing.

Added another Trump adviser, “One thing the president’s done is to try to govern for everybody. Even those who didn’t vote for him in the last election are now seeing a lot of results in their communities, and we’re seeing the poll numbers amongst all those groups grow in a way that creates a lot of opportunities.”

Other policies helpful to the black community supported by the president include a criminal justice reform law and increased funding for historically black colleges.

Brewer, who is a lifelong Democrat and entrepreneur who played for three NFL teams, said President Trump is working much harder than any Republican candidate in his lifetime to reach out to black voters, the Times reported.

“Donald Trump will get over 20% of the black vote,” Brewer said in an interview. “That is what’s going to win the election.

“Why? Because there hasn’t been a Republican to even try to go in and talk to the black community. They don’t go there. They don’t even try. I think he’s trying, finally,” he added.

Democrats continue to claim that the president sends out ‘racist dog whistles’ to white voters when he is criticized by prominent black opponents.

But his campaign has struck back against such allegations.

Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser with the Trump campaign, said it’s beyond dispute “that African Americans have been benefiting from President Trump’s policies.”

“Four years ago, the president asked the black community, ‘What do you have to lose;’ now we are thinking, ‘Imagine what we stand to gain!,’” she said as the campaign launched its “Black Voices for Trump” coalition last month.