Not many people are buying the Trump campaign's pitch to black voters

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In what could be considered, at the least, an ill-timed strategy considering President Trump's rhetoric, the Trump re-election campaign is hoping to draw more support from black voters, Politico reports.

Apparently the campaign thinks that it can get voters to "ignore the president's words and instead focus on his policies," which the team argues have resulted in things such as America's strong economy and low unemployment rate. The hope, Politico reports, is that stealing a few votes from Democrats among the black population would help swing key states in the election.

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"The idea is that, because of his agenda, his comments on Charlottesville, Baltimore, or s---hole countries do not matter," Michael Steele, the former chair of the Republican National Committee and the first African American to serve in that role, said. "Or that you can say the most racist things in the world, but hey, I got a tax cut. Or you can disparage my homeland, but the unemployment rate is going down. I certainly think we should expect more from our political leaders. I would think they would expect more from us."

Jennifer Hochschild, a professor of government and African-American studies at Harvard University said she imagines the campaign's efforts will "mostly" be "a waste of time." Read more at Politico.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.