Trump’s advisers said his message should be seen as an opening play in a robust push.
“It’s wise before you start going into these places to put things out there for people to cogitate about, and not just walk into an environment where people might be so hostile they won’t listen to you,” Carson said. “That’s what he has been doing: prepping the ground for what’s to come.”
So far, Trump has declined appearances before minority audiences that many past Republican nominees have made, such as the NAACP convention. Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said on CNN on Monday that Trump stopped trying to address such large gatherings after he canceled a March rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago because so many protesters showed up.
“You know what happened?” Lewandowski said. “The campus was overrun, and it was not a safe environment.”
Carson said he has had several conversations with Trump about his upbringing in a poor, mostly black section of Detroit, which led to discussions about Trump visiting there. Carson said Trump intends to develop and promote policies on school choice and vouchers, public aid programs that can help keep families together, and potentially prison reform.
“He recognizes that what’s been going on for the last 50 years in major cities has not uplifted anybody,” Carson said. “He’s going to talk about a different way, about empowering people through education in the inner cities, where failing schools have been protected by politicians.”
Last Thursday, the Republican National Committee hosted a conference call with nearly 100 black leaders, RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer said. On the call, Trump’s director of African American outreach, Omarosa Manigault — a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” the NBC reality television show that starred Trump — outlined a plan to boost the GOP nominee.
“The Democrats continue to take the African-American community for granted,” Manigault said in a statement provided by the campaign. “It is disconcerting that they would rather pander than formulate substantive policy plans that would actually improve conditions as opposed to continue down the current path of the last eight years.”
In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney won just 6 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls.
“We have to do better,” said Spicer, who now spends a few days a week in New York working in concert with Trump’s senior staff. “Luckily this is something the campaign is on board with, and you’re going to see a lot more engagement down the stretch.”
One variable is how Trump’s mostly white base of fervent supporters, who were drawn to his candidacy in the primaries because of his politically incorrect rhetoric, might react to his latest positioning.
Michael Steele, a former RNC chairman who has advised Trump and his team to visit historically black colleges or hold town-hall meetings in cities like Baltimore, said public and private polls this summer showing Trump’s low support among nonwhite voters served as stark warning signs.
“Those numbers will force you to get smart,” Steele said. “They said to each other, ‘We’re going to be active in getting that vote.’ ”
Trump’s new posture is being influenced by his new campaign captains, chief executive Steve Bannon and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who were brought in last week amid a staff shake-up.
He also has been motivated by a private poll of black voters conducted by campaign adviser Tony Fabrizio. The survey found that blacks have a lesser affinity for Hillary Clinton than they did for her husband and that their support dips once they learn about her advocacy for a 1994 crime bill signed by Bill Clinton, according to two people briefed on the poll’s findings.
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant, has urged Trump to exploit Bill Clinton’s crime record, arguing that “an entire generation of young black men are incarcerated” because of the law, which imposed tougher prison sentences for a range of drug-related crimes.
“Black voters have no affinity for Hillary Clinton,” Stone said. “She’s done nothing for them. . . . Bill Clinton has an affinity to black voters, and it’s stylistic: He slips on the shades, plays the saxophone, how cool. But most black voters don’t know about the 1994 crime bill, and they need to be educated.”
Both Clintons have since said they regretted the crime bill.
When Trump began his campaign, he was confident he would do better with black voters than Romney — mostly because African Americans form part of his commercial base for “The Apprentice” and his casinos. People who have helped manage the Trump Organization’s brand said the company’s private research over the past decades showed that many black people admired Trump’s ostentatious lifestyle.
But that image changed once Trump became a political figure in 2011 by making himself the face of the “birther” movement, which sought to delegitimize President Obama by questioning his birth in Hawaii.
Now, Trump is turning to a cast of black surrogates for rehabilitation. At a rally last Thursday in Charlotte, Clarence Henderson, a civil rights activist who participated in the 1960 Woolworth’s sit-in in Greensboro, N.C., led the crowd in prayer. Then sisters Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson — YouTube stars who go by the names Diamond and Silk — gave an enthusiastic endorsement.
Hardaway exhorted, “I want to say to all of my black brothers and sisters: It is time for you to make a change and join the Trump train, baby.”
