Black Support For Trump Surges, Emerson and Rasmussen Both Put It At 34%

The Washington Examiner had more:

Kanye West isn’t the only one anymore.

A growing number of polls show that President Trump is gaining the support of black voters above what any Republican president has ever received. Both Emerson Polling and Rasmussen Reports have it at about 34%, a stunning number.

And a new Zogby Analytics survey found that African American support is at the “highest levels of the year,” driven by a strong economy, historically low black unemployment, and Trump’s agenda to support minority small businesses, historically black colleges and universities, and passage of criminal justice reform.

“Not surprisingly, all African Americans do not hate Trump!” pollster Jonathan Zogby said in sharing his data with us.

But Trump critics don’t buy it. Democratic and Barack Obama pollster Cornell Belcher is one. He rejected the reasoning that black support is growing and suggested that the polls are wrong.

“Those reasons would assume that it’s real, which it isn’t. To have a conversation about the reason is giving it credibility,” he said.

“I’m not going to bad mouth anyone’s polling here, but particularly with small subsamples, you get blips. When you look across the data and even look back to see what the trend is, it’s pretty apparent that numbers like that are outliers,” added Belcher, the founder of Brilliant Corners Research & Strategies.

To answer those concerns, Zogby “oversampled” black voters in his latest survey and found that the support was 27%, but he also measured support in head-to-head matchups with 2020 Democratic candidates to put that support to an election test.

In all cases, while black support for Trump dropped when an alternative was offered, it was higher than the 8% he received in 2016 and maybe enough to push him across the finish line first in 2020.

Against Joe Biden, Trump receives 12% of the black vote. Against Sen. Bernie Sanders, it was 14%. And against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, it was 17%.

Those levels are the best for a GOP president or presidential candidate since 1968.

While he had a 5% margin of error, Zogby said the trend is clear. “If Trump is able to up his numbers over 10% or near 15%, and with a lower turnout among African Americans because they are not excited by the field of candidates or turned off by D.C., Trump could really benefit from this scenario in the 2020 general election,” he told us.

I actually loved this article from Politico because of it's title:  "President Trump Shocks Black Voters....By Trying To Get Their Votes":

The Westside Gazette bills itself as “Broward County’s oldest and largest African American owned-and-operated newspaper.” For five decades, the Fort Lauderdale, Fla. weekly has catered to a staunchly Democratic readership. 

So when readers opened an edition last month to find a full-page ad from President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, many couldn’t believe it. Why would he even bother? 

“I thought it was quite abnormal,” said Bobby Henry, the newspaper’s publisher and CEO. He said a reader sought him out at church last weekend to ask what was up. “For [Trump] to reach out to the broader African American community is what surprised me.” 

Yet that’s precisely what Trump is doing. 

The president’s reelection campaign has spent $1 million in an effort to make inroads with black voters, and more is coming, according to a person with direct knowledge of the planning. The initiative, dubbed “Black Voices” by the campaign, so far has included ads in black-run newspapers and on radio stations, volunteer training seminars and a kickoff event hosted by Trump in Atlanta last month. 

READ MORE:  Why Do So Many Politicians and Celebrities Have Black Eyes?

The Trump ads tout low unemployment among African Americans, Trump’s support for historically black colleges and universities, and the White House-backed criminal reform legislation that passed earlier this year. 

The spots, which encourage voters to sign up for Trump 2020 updates by texting “Woke” to a campaign phone number, are concentrated in big cities located in battleground states, including Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta. 

Trump received just 8 percent of the black vote in 2016, and his campaign aides concede he’s never going to win more than a narrow slice of African American support. But that’s not the point, they argue. If Trump can nudge his way into double digits among black voters and potentially into the low teens, it would eat away at Democratic margins in key swing states and possibly alter the outcome in a close election. 

Florida is a case study in how a small shift in the black vote can make a big difference in a key battleground. According to exit polls, black voters made up 14 percent of the electorate in Florida in 2016, and Trump won just 8 percent of them. Had Trump received 12 percent, it would have netted him more than 50,000 votes, roughly half of his total margin of victory in the state. 

“It’s not about whether or not he can change enough minds to get him to 98 percent of the black vote,” said Paris Dennard, a Republican strategist who is advising the Trump campaign on the effort. “You can move the needle ever so slightly in certain cities and certain counties.” 

Dennard, who worked in the George W. Bush White House and at the Republican National Committee, said Trump is courting African Americans far more aggressively than previous Republican presidential candidates. 

“It’s historic because this just doesn’t happen,” he said. 

Democrats dismiss the idea that Trump could make serious inroads. Trump's job-approval rating among black voters was 10 percent in the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. And a Quinnipiac University survey released Tuesday showed the Democratic polling leader, former Vice President Joe Biden, leading Trump among black voters, 87 to 7 percent.

Maybe some of this support is coming from Trump's historic support of black colleges.

Our friend Katrina Pierson had more on that:

The Congressional budgeting process is often like a low-scoring football game comprised of fumbles, interceptions, and dropped passes—especially when it comes to funding historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Practically every year, HBCU funding is punted by each chamber of Congress until a deal is reached on whether to increase financial support, keep it the same, or worse, decrease aid. But not anymore. The days of HBCUs being used as a bargaining chip are over.

That’s because earlier this month, the Senate passed a historic bill by unanimous consent to permanently fund HBCUs, and the House passed a similar bill last month. Now, the amended Senate bill heads to the House for a final vote before going to President Trump to sign into law. From this impending historic moment forward, funding for HBCUs shall never be in question again.

The bipartisan bill is known as the FUTURE Act (Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education) and will provide HBCUs with a minimum of $255 million, annually.

READ MORE:  Why Do All Liberals Have The Same Bug-Eyed Look?

The guaranteed funding will aid HBCUs in fiscal sustainability management in good times and downward trends in enrollment during economic uncertainty. A staunch supporter of HBCUs is South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (R), who stated, “It is critical we ensure that every American family has access to a high-quality education, and today’s action is a big step in that direction. Our HBCUs will have more certainty in their financial planning, and millions of students will benefit from a streamlined FAFSA form. I’m thankful we were able to reach a bipartisan, common-sense solution to help students across the country.”

In addition to the FUTURE Act, HBCUs have made great strides in the last three years under the Trump administration. Now, before you question the results, stay with me until the end of this article to review a few unknown facts.

1. On Feb. 28, 2017, a little more than 30 days after his inauguration, President Trump signed executive order 13779 that established ‘The White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.’ Although many people scoffed at the presidential order to empower HBCUs, the historic and tangible results that followed the highly criticized photo-op in the Oval Office speak volumes.
2. President Trump has given more money to HBCUs than any other president in history for both undergraduate and graduate studies. Federal funding for HBCUs is up 17% under the Trump administration with an increase of more than $100 million, which surpassed the previous record set by President Obama amid the first black president’s tenuous and love-hate relationship with HBCUs.
3. In March 2018, the Trump administration provided financial relief to HBCUs impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued full forgiveness of loans in the amount of $322 million to Dillard University, Southern University at New Orleans, Tougaloo College, and Xavier University of Louisiana under the HBCU Hurricane Supplemental Loan program. The monies saved can be repurposed to provide tuition assistance and expansion of curriculum, where feasible.
4. To comply with President Trump’s executive order for more strategic partnership investments in HBCUs, Congress has drafted the HBCU PARTNERS Act (Propelling Agency Relationships Towards a New Era of Results for Students). HBCUs are in 19 states which gives those academic institutions greater access to compete for more than $52 billion in state-based federal agency research and development investments.

And maybe it's due to HISTORIC low black unemployment.

CNN had more on that:

Black unemployment fell to a record low in August, helped by a jump in the number of black women on the job.

The unemployment rate for black workers fell to 5.5% from 6%, according to the Labor Department data. The previous record low of 5.9% was set in May 2018.

The unemployment rate for black women fell to a record 4.4% from 5.2% in July. The unemployment rate for black men crept up to 5.9% from 5.8%. But the previous month's rate was a record, so the rate is still near its historic low.

Unemployment among workers who identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino also fell in August to 4.2%, which matched a record low set earlier this year.

Minority unemployment has been tracked by the Labor Department since the early 1970's. Both black and Hispanic or Latino unemployment numbers have traditionally been higher than white unemployment, and it remains so today. White unemployment was 3.4% in August, up from 3.3% previously. But this is the smallest gap on record between the respective unemployment rates for blacks and whites.

Overall the US unemployment rate stood at 3.7%, unchanged from the previous month.

The record low unemployment rate for African-Americans is undeniably good news, said Valerie Wilson, director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy for the Economic Policy Institute. She cautioned that the monthly figures for different racial groups' unemployment rates could be volatile, although she said the less volatile annual rates have also improved. She attributed the improvement to the prolonged strength of the US labor market. Employers have been adding jobs for 107 straight months and unemployment nationwide is near a 50-year low.

"As jobs continue to be created, those who were still looking for work, those like minorities with historically higher rates of unemployment, are the ones in position to take advantage of those opportunities," she said.

And maybe.....just maybe.....it's because President Trump is Making America GREAT Again for ALL Americans of all skincolors.

Maybe it's because he's bringing us all together.

Maybe it's because he simply loves America and is making it better, strong, safer.

Could that be the reason?