Among the Donald Trump campaign’s many general election challenges is appealing to the black vote. Despite earlier speeches about taking care “of our African-American people who have been mistreated for so long,” and that jobs for African-Americans can solve police brutality, black people aren’t going for it, at least in Pennsylvania and Ohio. In polls done in both of those states, Trump got 0 percent of the black vote. How to solve this problem? Get someone who once starred on your reality show to do outreach.
According to Politico, Trump has named Omarosa Manigault, who broke out in The Apprentice‘s first season as the villain, as his director of African-American outreach. She’s already questioning the accuracy of that survey, saying that the African-Americans she knows are excited about Trump:
“I just spent an amazing weekend with African-Americans for Trump, about 300 of them,” she said. “I’m just wondering who they called because those numbers would be flawed according to the people who have come out to support, had an amazing faith-based service yet with African-Americans who support Donald Trump, had an amazing reception yesterday evening with African-Americans who support Trump. So I look at the data, but my reality is that I’m surrounded by people who to want see Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, who are African-American.”
Three hundred African-Americans for Trump. How many percentage points would that translate into on a poll? And were they all from Pennsylvania or Ohio? Omarosa insists that Trump will help African-Americans in Ohio, especially the city of Youngstown where she’s from, and where she says her family members are still looking for jobs. “Donald Trump is focused on improving the economic conditions of African-Americans in this country … because let me tell you, unemployment in African-American communities is at an all-time high,” she says.
With Omarosa, Trump really is targeting a specific demographic in a specific state (albeit one that is usually very important come election time) that has so far snubbed him. We’ll see how Omarosa does in her new role, not only in Ohio, but in the rest of the country as well.