Biden, Trump allies rush to try to turn out black votes in Atlanta ahead of debate

Before President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump took the stage in Atlanta on Thursday, their battle to engage black voters reached a fever pitch.

Representatives, officials and organizers from both parties held a series of events in barbershops, community centers and workrooms across Atlanta this week, using the backdrop of the early clash between the two presidential candidates to encourage a crucial voting bloc in the heart of a key battleground state to turn out again in November.

The efforts come as black voters, long considered Democrats’ most loyal voters, have expressed growing frustration with Mr. Biden and his party in recent months. Some black voters suggested they would support Mr. Trump in November or not vote at all.

But even as the Trump campaign aims to take advantage of the bloc’s weakening support for Mr. Biden, it faces challenges in increasing its popular support among blacks and adopting policy positions that are popular with a broad enough number of voters. black voters, particularly those who have supported Democrats in the past. Some of the challenges the Republican Party faces in breaking Mr. Biden’s coalition were highlighted at these events.

A Republican-led discussion at a black-owned hair salon Wednesday in Atlanta quickly escalated, with speakers vacillating between obscure policy suggestions, cultural grievances and sometimes ahistorical conjectures about black Americans. One speaker called the transatlantic slave trade an “experiment” and said older generations of black voters generated “divisive narratives.”

Another, who said he was speaking on the panel as a nonpartisan, suggested that Republicans might have a better chance of winning over black voters by “looking beyond Trump” to another candidate in the next presidential election. At the end of the 90-minute session, which was far outnumbered by Republican reporters and organizers, the owner of Rocky’s Barbershop said he wasn’t sure yet who he would support for president in November.

“I’m just a black man in America. I just want the right person to win,” said owner Rocky Jones. “I like the word ‘unity.’ I like diversity. I like the people who support me. I support them. I like teamwork.”

Several black spokesmen for Trump’s campaign, including Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida and Wesley Hunt of Texas, as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, attended the event. Mr. Trump also briefly called the rally, touting his record on reducing black unemployment and promising to lower gas prices if reelected. He also reiterated that after his mug shot and, later, his felony conviction, his support among black and Latino voters “skyrocketed” — a claim that Mr. Biden’s campaign immediately condemned as racist.

Representatives for Mr. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Democrats, for their part, sent dozens of Black surrogates to Atlanta to hold events in the city before the debate. Many of the Biden campaign’s policy-focused events, while not explicitly aimed at Black voters, were led by local Black officials flanked by Black community leaders.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor who was named a senior adviser to Mr. Biden’s campaign, said at a news conference Monday that Mr. Biden has a “track record” of success with Black communities. Yet she and other Black supporters of the president face a much tougher battle getting that message across to Black voters in key states like Georgia, where Mr. Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020.

“The work has been done,” she said of the president’s policies. “It’s always possible to make sure we say it more often and louder. »

The level of turnout among black voters could decide the election, something Republicans are sensitive to. Those who helped organize the events on behalf of the Trump campaign, including Mr. Hunt and Mr. Donalds, said the main goal was to increase support among one segment of that group, namely black men, who in polls and focus groups have shown more openness to supporting conservatives.

“If there’s one criticism of the way the party – the Republican Party – has run itself over the past 60 years, it’s that it has never taken the time to engage voters black people and tell them there is another way to listen to us,” Mr. Donalds said. at a “Congress, Cigars and Cognac” event in an Atlanta suburb on Wednesday.