President Donald Trump is working hard to convince enough African Americans to vote for him to make the difference in key states that could help him win the November election, Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday.
“Trump is going very hard at African-American men, particularly younger African-American men,” Simmons said, stressing that “I'm going to send this flag up to the Democratic Party. People need to understand this.”
Simmons, who worked on Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, gave as examples of Trump’s outreach to black voters his public friendship with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, his efforts to get rapper A$AP Rocky out of trouble in Sweden, and an increase in federal money given to Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
"They're not gonna let up," he said.
Simmons emphasized that Trump, who received only 8% of the African American vote in the last presidential election, “doesn't have to win [the majority of black votes]. He just has to tick it up a couple of points in some key places to have it count.”
Simmons added that “Democrats need to have a candidate who really has a strategy about how to deal with” Trump’s efforts to attract black voters. “And if Bernie Sanders is not the nominee, I will tell you, a lot of those - a lot of Bernie Sanders' voters are anti-establishment voters more than their Democrats. And they might get wooed by Donald Trump.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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