With Lil Wayne, Ice Cube And 50 Cent, Trump Makes Final Push For Black Voters

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Even when President Trump unveiled his plan for Black economic empowerment, he put most of his emphasis on telling people why they shouldn’t vote for his Democratic opponent Joe Biden.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

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Elections
Trump Campaign Makes Pitch To Black Neighborhoods. Will It Connect?

The campaign spent $20 million on radio and TV ads — including a Super Bowl spot — as well as door-knocking operations and opening 17 field offices in Black neighborhoods in swing states.

Polls have shown some growth in support in certain parts of the Black electorate, but experts are skeptical about how much impact it will have.

The website FiveThirtyEight.com did an analysis earlier this month that found that Trump was doing better with younger African Americans. His support was at 21 percent in 2020 with voters under 44, up from 10 percent in 2016. More recent surveys have since showed Trump’s support among young Black voters dropping, but he remains slightly more popular with them than with older Black voters.

The problem for Trump is that younger voters aren’t as committed as older ones to getting out to vote, although there are some signs that the youth voting rate will higher than usual this year.

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Supporters listen as President Trump unveils his plan for Black Americans at an event in Atlanta last month.

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Elections
Trump Promises Black Voters A ‘Platinum Plan’ For Loans As He Bashes Biden

The campaign has tried to appeal to Black men by highlighting former athletes who back Trump — and more recently, some big-name rap stars.

Rapper 50 Cent briefly expressed support for Trump in an expletive-ridden post on Instagram after complaining that Biden would raise his taxes. He later walked back his statements.

50 Cent represents the type of Black male voter more likely to find Trump appealing, Laird said.

«Clearly, his monetary gains and his monetary goals outweigh his views on where the Black community is or what Black people even think of him. And he said so,» Laird said.

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Another rapper, Ice Cube, also announced that he worked with the Trump campaign on its «Platinum Plan» for Black economic empowerment. Ice Cube told Fox News Sunday that he still had not decided who would get his vote, but he was willing to work with whoever will help African Americans.

Trump adviser Pierson says she thinks the strategy will work. She believes Trump will reach into the double digits among Black voters this time.

But Johnson said an increase of a few points would not represent a historic level of support for a Republican president. The only Republicans in recent decades who did worse than Trump with Black voters were on the ballot against the first Black president.

«What we’re seeing today is not Donald Trump converting Black voters to the Republican Party. We are seeing Black Republicans coming back home,» Johnson said.