U.S. Sen. Tim Scott on Thursday predicted that President Donald Trump would receive a huge surge in the black vote in November after several outreach efforts and policies aimed at helping African-Americans.
“President Trump will see a 50 percent increase in his African-American support. It will go from 8 percent in 2016 to a minimum of 12 percent in 2020. He may even get to 15 percent of the African-American vote,” Scott, a South Carolina Republican, said on the Fox News program “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”
Asked why he believes that, he said that Trump was reaching out to black voters with opportunities and long-term solutions, not temporary handouts.
“[The president] had an Executive Order to increase affordability of home ownership and African-American home ownership since he took office is up about 2 percent,” Scott said.
He also noted that black voters will remember 2020 Democratic presidential contender Michael Bloomberg’s “stop-and-frisk” policy that amounted to “harassing African-American males.” Bloomberg served as mayor of New York City when the policy was in effect.
“Compare that against President Trump’s criminal justice reform packages that are making the justice system more fair for African-Americans,” the senator said.
He added that the Trump administration has created “seven million more jobs during this administration, [with] more than half of those jobs going to African-Americans and Hispanics. The wealth gap closes as the home ownership goes up.”
“President Trump is not just talking a good game, he is walking a good game,” he said, adding: “Think about this: President Trump got permanent funding for HBCUs [Historic Black Colleges and Universities] for the first time in the country’s history.
“This president, President Trump, is not simply talking about going after every single vote in America, he is actually doing the work to get every community in this nation focused not on what the Democrats promised, because their track record is abysmal,” the South Carolina Republican added.