(Headline USA) A top ally and potential running mate of President Donald Trump is launching a new effort to win over Black and other nonwhite working class voters he argues could be the deciding factor in November’s elections.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott will lead a $14 million campaign targeting minority voters in seven key swing states.
Scott’s push comes as Trump’s campaign is ramping up its own outreach efforts to Hispanic and Black voters, especially Black men, in his expected rematch against Joe Biden. It also gives Scott, one of several Republicans being vetted for vice president by Trump’s campaign, another platform to demonstrate his loyalty — and utility — to the presumptive GOP nominee.
Scott says that, with Trump atop the ticket, he believes Republicans have a unique opportunity to chip into Democrats’ historic dominance with minority voters. Polls show many Black and other nonwhite adults are dissatisfied with Biden’s performance, though Trump could have an uphill battle winning them over given his own unpopularity with those groups.
“Much to the chagrin of many folks, there’s no doubt that African American men are wide open for a political shift of partisanship,” Scott said as he briefed reporters on the effort in Washington this week.
The new campaign will be run by Scott’s Great Opportunity PAC, which was formed after he suspended his campaign for the GOP nomination last year. Aides say the group will work to win over voters in Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
The campaign will include canvassing, digital advertising, direct mail, events and appearances by Scott and other elected officials in minority communities that Scott said Republicans have too often avoided.
While it remains separate from Trump’s campaign, aides said Scott recently met with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump to brief them on his plans.
“We will fight for and earn the vote of Black and brown voters and in doing so help Donald J. Trump win the Presidency and Republicans win back the House and Senate,” reads a memo from Jennifer DeCasper, who managed Scott’s 2024 campaign.
Trump has held a number of events in recent weeks aimed at those groups, including a rally in the New York’s South Bronx and a dinner Wednesday evening with students and alumni from historically Black colleges and universities at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Scott’s group believes a fundamental realignment is underway. It notes that Trump in 2016 won large swaths of white working-class voters who had once formed the heart of Democrats’ Rust Belt base. Now, aides say they sees signs of a broader shift in which more nonwhite working-class voters could turn to Trump, too.
Even a small shift of only a few percentage points with minority voters could make the difference in what is expected to be an exceptionally close election.
At the same time, national Democrats are investing heavily in stopping Trump from making inroads with a core constituency.
Nonetheless, Scott argues Trump’s tenure was better for Black Americans, citing policies like a bipartisan criminal justice reform package Trump signed into law and his funding for historically Black colleges and universities. Voters, he said, are angry and looking for better economic conditions, safer neighborhoods and better schools.
“We’ve seen a lot of seed in this soil that is germinating,” he said. With “a good microphone — someone who’s good at speaking into that microphone — we have a real strong opportunity to make this election unlike the previous elections.”
That could include, Scott allies say, having the senator on Trump’s ticket.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
