Donald Trump’s Attacks On Barack Obama Could Cause Issues With A Key Demographic

President Donald Trump is trying to win over a critical demographic — black voters. However, some believe that he may be causing problems that could keep him from winning over any more voters among the group with his renewed attacks on President Barack Obama as well as issues related to the coronavirus pandemic, The New York Times reported.

Each week, the president’s reelection team has held weekly virtual meetings with a group called Black Voices for Trump. In the 2016 election, Trump won over only 8 percent of black voters, and he attempted to make gains with that demographic by touting low unemployment, criminal justice reform, and supporting traditionally black colleges. However, with the coronavirus pandemic, the president faces a harsh reality, which is the virus appears to affect African Americans disproportionately. Black people are dying at higher rates than other groups. Plus, the unemployment that resulted from COVID-19 took away one of the president’s key selling points among black voters.

Yesterday, CNN released a poll on Tuesday that showed overall 54 percent of adults in the United States felt that the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been weak. Among black respondents, 79 percent felt the government’s response was inadequate. Plus, the details also showed that nearly 54 percent of black adults personally know somebody who tested positive, which contrasted with 38 percent of white adults and 36 percent of Latino adults who knew somebody who became ill with the novel coronavirus.

Earlier today, Trump retweeted a video from Dan Scavino that featured former President Barack Obama reading a mean tweet from then citizen Trump, and Obama said at least he’d be remembered as a president. Trump added his own commentary to the tweet.

“Obama was always wrong!”

Although Obama was wrong with his remarks, Trump’s attacks on America’s first black president leave many people feeling that the president has little hope of winning more black voters than he did in 2016. Plus, in recent days, Trump had tweeted and retweeted many things about “Obamagate,” which The Inquisitr reported he didn’t explain at all when he was asked about it earlier this week.

Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, said that the disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on black people are increasing disdain for the president and his response.

She also noted that her group’s polls showed that black voters “do not trust him to be honest, and they don’t expect to get accurate information from him. The impact is intensifying people’s dislike and distrust.”

Also, Mitch McConnell, who is the Senate majority leader and a strong supporter of President Trump, recently said that Obama “should have kept his mouth shut” about Trump’s handling of the coronavirus response. Then McConnell went on to call the former president’s remarks “classless.”

Even a small increase in black voters over the 8 percent he won in 2016 would help the president’s reelection campaign. At this point, Trump may have lost any advantage he had built with the demographic due to the realities of the current economy and his pandemic handling along with his and other prominent Republicans’ attacks on Obama.