Tag: african american voters
New NBC Poll Shows Trump Effort To Win Black Voters Is Failing

New NBC Poll Shows Trump Effort To Win Black Voters Is Failing

In an effort to win reelection in 2020, Donald Trump and his campaign have made a strong push to win over black voters, a traditionally Democratic constituency.

In fact, Trump claimed in November 2019 that he would win reelection in 2020, thanks to "a groundswell of support from hardworking African American patriots."

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How Can Buttigieg Solve His South Carolina Puzzle?

How Can Buttigieg Solve His South Carolina Puzzle?

ROCK HILL, S.C. — Why was South Bend, Indiana, mayor and Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg in South Carolina over the weekend, with a busy schedule that included tailgating at a historically black college homecoming and delivering remarks at an AME Zion worship service?

“To say that I want to be the president who can pick up the pieces, that we’ve got to be ready not just to defeat this president but to guide the country forward,” he confidently told me. “I have my eyes on that moment and what America’s going to need.”

It’s quite a tall order for a candidate polls show in single digits in the first-in-the-South primary, where he is still largely unknown to the African Americans who make up the majority of the state’s Democratic voters, even as his campaign coffers and Iowa poll numbers rise. In a weekend packed with public appearances, he and a diverse group of campaign workers and surrogates, including some from South Bend, were trying to catch up — and distribute those “African Americans for Pete” buttons.

After a pep talk to a not so racially diverse group of volunteers who gathered in a black-owned meeting space in downtown Rock Hill before spreading out to canvass on Sunday afternoon — “Let’s have some fun,” he told them — we spoke in the (closed for the day) beauty parlor and spa in the back. It will be more hard work than merriment for Buttigieg and his supporters in South Carolina, where former Vice President Joe Biden still holds the lead and a lot of loyalty with African American voters.

What would canvasser Buttigieg say to those voters who answered the door? He said he would “share the story of my experience as somebody whose life has been shaped by politics in ways both good and bad. There was a decision in Washington that sent me to war; there was a decision in Washington that made my marriage possible. At so many moments, my life and my community’s life has been shaped by all the things that they talk about on Capitol Hill.” He would “make sure they understand that that’s what propels me and what makes me tick.”

“We can’t go on like this or we won’t recognize our country.”

Enthusiasm was high among those who are already committed.

“I love that he’s kind and compassionate and patriotic,” said Janie Westenfelder, 56, who manages a women’s clothing store in Charleston, and had traveled to Rock Hill to volunteer. She has been a supporter, she said, since she read Buttigieg’s “Shortest Way Home,” copies of which were a common sight in the room, and heard him at the South Carolina Democratic Convention in June. While not many mayors could make the leap to the White House, she said, Buttigieg is “smart enough to get the right people in the room.”

Other voters will need more convincing.

For Buttigieg, the weekend, which included a criminal justice forum, provided an opportunity to tout his Douglass plan — “a comprehensive investment in Black America,” the info card said — to address everything from health policy and education to voting rights and the racial wealth gap; and his comprehensive criminal justice reform program, which includes not only assistance for those in prison, during and after incarceration, but also training for law enforcement on issues specific to marginalized communities such as restrictions on use of force by officers.

Why should black voters believe he would be able to implement his plans nationally when tensions between police and minority citizens in South Bend, which escalated after a police shooting, remain, and Buttigieg himself, when asked at a debate why the proportion of black officers dropped during his tenure, said, “Because I couldn’t get it done.” It was not just my question but one I’ve heard from quite a few black voters, and not just in South Carolina.

“We’re not out saying that it’s ever been perfect, and South Bend’s journey has been a complex one,” he said, “but we’ve also taken a lot of these kinds of steps in South Bend making sure that we’re supporting people in low-income neighborhoods that were under-invested.” He said the city is involving the entire community in accountability on policing. “It’s part of what motivates what we seek to do nationally with the Department of Justice.”

“But if we don’t have the presidency, if we don’t have the federal government aligned around these issues, if we’re not insisting that the White House be a force for equity, then I don’t think we’re ever going to get there.”

South Bend experience

Two African-American women spotlighted their own South Bend experiences. Arielle Brandy, 29, the campaign’s Indiana state director, spoke to me about the mayor’s leadership on creating generational wealth and strong leaders in the community. When she became involved in Indiana politics, she said, “Anytime I needed resources, he was always my first contact.”

It was the first time as a campaign surrogate for Janet Evelyn, a consultant, project manager and coach. She said she first met Buttigieg after she moved to South Bend several years ago as campus president of the local community college. Though Evelyn had to wait for a face-to-face until Buttigieg returned from active duty, when they met, she said he asked, “How are they treating you in South Bend?” Two weeks later she was in the mayor’s office. She said he brought monthly meetings of his staff to the college and spoke with students and parents. Evelyn, who served on the city’s diversity task force and the My Brother’s Keeper board, said the mayor is “genuine, humble and knows the issues,” adding that she would urge black voters, “Please, just listen to his message.”

That may be complicated because of information leaked — not from his campaign, it says — that black voters, particularly if they are older, socially conservative and Southern, may not be as welcoming to a gay candidate. In the ensuing reaction and backlash, some black voters with many questions about Buttigieg’s experience and candidacy wondered if incomplete information from a very small focus group would be used to blame low poll numbers on the perceived prejudices of an entire group, and build a divisive narrative.

“I think honestly anyone who’s been — and I’m not trying to say there’s an equivalency here because everybody’s experience is different — but I think anybody’s who’s been on the wrong end of a pattern of exclusion can find a lot of solidarity right now,” Buttigieg said.

“And so even though some of the traditional political advice would say not to do this, it’s actually part of my outreach, too, making sure black voters know where I come from and my story. Not because my experience lets me know exactly what it is like to be black in America, but because I know what it’s like to have my rights come up for debate, and I know what it’s like to wonder if I will be denied opportunities because of who I am, and because I know that I have rights that came not only because of the activism of people like me but because of the alliance of people not like me.”

In South Carolina, where voters of all races take their politics and early-primary status seriously, people are listening, even if they have not quite made up their minds. On Sunday, that included building owner Antonio Barnes, who advised Buttigieg to “show his face” and “be present.”

Retired librarian Mary Sanders, 63, has seen changes in her Rock Hill and fears the folks she half-jokingly called “relics” are being forgotten amid gentrification. Her concerns include health care costs and opportunities for those on a fixed income.

So far, Sanders, who is African American, said she has attended events featuring Biden and Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. She sat right up front to hear what Buttigieg had to say, to be “aware of what’s going on in the community.”

“I’m just looking around,” she said, and smiled.

Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. Follow her on Twitter @mcurtisnc3.

IMAGE: Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Democratic presidential candidate in Charleston, South Carolina.

No, African American Voters Won’t Keep Silent To Defeat Trump

No, African American Voters Won’t Keep Silent To Defeat Trump

Republicans often say that the Democratic Party takes black voters for granted. They are right.

Of course, the GOP then does nothing to appeal to those voters. In fact, with the actions and words of its leaders on everything from gerrymandered districts (see North Carolina) to fair-housing enforcement (or the lack of it), the Republican Party, which once claimed broad support as the party of Lincoln, takes deliberate action to repel them.

So, election after election, Democrats count on GOP radioactivity to drive African Americans to vote for the “D.” What choice do they have, after all?

In the 2020 campaign, the landscape has shifted. Against the backdrop of prospective candidates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg stumbling into racial controversies and the stakes of the outcome rising ever higher, all voters, especially reliable members of the Democratic Party base, are asking questions and demanding not only answers but also concrete proposals on issues such as education reform, income inequality and voting rights.

Any candidate who wants any citizen’s vote will have to craft individual, policy-based appeals, and not take anything or anyone for granted. Why should black voters, who are not a monolith, expect anything less than the same care lavished on other members of the big tent?

Give them credit — the Democratic candidates this year are talking about health care, a living wage and other issues important to all voters but that may mean life or death to those who must deal with discrimination as well as the other obstacles each day brings. Candidates are offering comprehensive immigration plans that affect many people of color, and some dare to mention the word “reparations,” acknowledging that racism and its legacy did not disappear when the Civil War ended in the United States, where the president and Lost Cause supporters revere stone statues of the losing general.

Most on the long list of Democrats (so long two nights of debates wouldn’t accommodate them all) made another trip to early primary state South Carolina to attend the famous fish fry of Rep. Jim Clyburn, where the professionals and pundits are outnumbered by hard-working folks who come for some real talk along with the fish.

Candidates and fellow Democratic voters have to listen, as African American voters have signaled they will not lie low, be quiet and take one for the team because of the greater goal of taking Trump out of office.

The Democrats’ most loyal constituency has seen many of its concerns relegated to the bottom of the list, as the party chases after a percentage of white voters of every economic level who abandoned the party elections ago. Though they show no signs of coming back, countless Democratic appeals place elusive white working-class voters on a pedestal. There’s seemingly no room for ignored members of the black and brown working class, most of whom did not succumb to the siren song of Donald Trump yet get no thanks for their loyalty.

Don’t demand conversations on systemic racism and its lingering and devastating effects for fear of scaring white voters in swing states, voters of color are told, and not for the first time. All it takes is two words — identity politics — to dismiss them, despite the obvious reality that raw, barely coded shout-outs to white identity were key to Trump’s victory in 2016.

Increasingly, that tactic won’t work.

During the Obama years, pride in the nation’s first African American president sometimes muted disagreements — and there are some regrets about that. New generations of voters, as well as those who have trooped to the polls year after year, have learned being silent won’t bring results.

After Biden’s nostalgic words about cooperating with segregationists, his poll numbers did not drop, showing solid support — for now. But neither Biden nor any of the front-runners should get too comfortable. November 2020 is more than a year away, and voters are still shopping.

They’re paying attention to Biden’s own words and record on the 1994 crime bill and busing to achieve school desegregation. They’re paying attention to Buttigieg’s handling now and in the past of race and criminal justice in South Bend, Indiana, where angry citizens want answers on why police cameras were not activated during the recent shooting of a black man by a white police officer with a history of his own.

Each candidate can expect similar scrutiny as this week’s Democratic debates provide a forum and the opportunity for make-or-break moments.

Will black voters get the blame if their outspokenness is pointed to as the cause of any and every Democratic Party setback? Probably. For example, low turnout among African American voters has been offered as a big reason Hillary Clinton lost, despite the fact that whites across the board, including the majority of white female voters, chose team Trump, and African Americans voted for her overwhelmingly.

It doesn’t make much sense, but neither does much else when it comes to race and pointing the finger in America. African Americans are used to being the scapegoat no matter what the facts are.

To paraphrase a famous Trump quote, what do they have to lose by listening to each candidate, studying the issues, and voting for the one each may feel passionately about?

Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. Follow her on Twitter @mcurtisnc3.