IF HE CAN IT’S ALL OVER BUT ANOTHER FOUR YEARS OF SHOUTING: Can Trump Match FDR’s Appeal to Black Voters?

Last week the presidential campaign of Donald Trump announced a six-figure ad buy across black radio stations and in black newspapers. The newspaper campaign targeted 11 major markets in key states across the nation, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Virginia — all states that the Trump team believes will be in play in 2020. The radio ads were run in the same 11 urban markets. Under their theme of “Black Voices for Trump,” it is clear that the president’s Trump campaign is emulating what the Franklin D. Roosevelt campaign did in 1936.

Just as Roosevelt overwhelmingly lost the black vote in 1932, doing worse than Al Smith in 1928, Trump lost the black vote in 2016. But, again like Roosevelt in 1932, Trump did reach out to the black electorate in 2016. Both FDR in ’32 and Trump in ’16 had some limited but encouraging success in winning over these voters: Roosevelt in New York where he had been governor, and Trump in Pennsylvania where his outreach helped provide his margin of victory in that key state.

More like this, please.