Civil Rights Attorney: Trump Will Get Highest Number of Black Votes in Modern History of GOP

Will Donald Trump get the highest number of black votes for president in the history of the GOP? A black civil rights attorney who also does podcasting and radio thinks so.

Leo Terrell, a frequent Fox News contributor, has been an outspoken critic of Trump in the past, but has also said he’ll be voting Republican for the first time in his life. In an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program on Monday, he said a lot of other black voters will be doing the same.

“I brought over 300,000 black Democrats to vote for Trump. I’m bringing more and more and more,” he said.

“Trump is going to get the highest number of black votes ever in modern-day history for a Republican. Black voters are voting for Trump,” he added.

It’s unclear where that 300,000 mark comes from; perhaps he’s talking about his black listeners. Republicans would certainly welcome the influx, either way.

The thing is that President Trump doesn’t need a tremendous swing in black voters for it to be a game-changer in swing states — particularly in places like Michigan and Wisconsin, where Democrats depend on people of color turning out for them in Detroit and Milwaukee.

While Leo Terrell’s listenership — if that is where the 300,000 number is coming from — isn’t necessarily a representative polling sample, pollsters have seen a bump in support for Trump in the black community.

A survey by The Hill and HarrisX, conducted Aug. 22-25, found that 24 percent of black voters approved of President Trump. The sample period included the first two days of the Republican National Convention.

“That is up 9 points from the previous survey conducted Aug. 8-11, where the President received 15 percent support among this group,” the poll reported.

It’s not the only poll that has seen some movement in the black vote.

PollWatch is a Republican-run Twitter account and it’s worth noting the U.K. Express/Democracy Institute poll PollWatch refers to is considered an outlier, having consistently shown Trump in the lead nationally.

Emerson definitely isn’t, however, and its poll shows Trump within the margin of error of Democratic nominee Joe Biden nationally, trailing him 49 percent to 47 percent.  Biden takes 77 percent of the black vote compared to 19 percent for President Trump. The landline phone poll of 1,567 likely voters was taken Aug. 30-31.

Considering Trump only garnered 8 percent of the black vote in 2016, that would be huge for the campaign.

Meanwhile, Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll has consistently found Trump approval among likely black voters at over 30 percent.

There was, of course, significant outreach to the black community during the Republican National Convention.

Speakers like South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, former NFL star Herschel Walker, Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones, a Democrat, and criminal justice reformer Alice Johnson, who was granted clemency by Trump, all took aim at Biden’s record on race while putting the spotlight on minority conservatives.

And then there’s Biden himself, who’s compiled a particularly wretched record with black Americans yet somehow managed to win enough of their support to carry him over the line in the Democratic primaries. Biden, of course, is counting on black votes.

Remember the immortal line: “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” as he said during a May interview.

In an opinion piece for Fox News published Aug. 17, Terrell took aim at the arrogance of those comments.

“In case you don’t know, I AM Black, and I did not know that the color of my skin also came with a mandate that I vote for the old White guy who’s been in politics for 47 years (without a discernible record of accomplishments on behalf of Black people),” he wrote.

“I didn’t know that Black Americans were expected to form a monolithic voting bloc, one in which we bow down to the almighty Democrats, and do whatever they say. Again, I ask, what has Biden done for Black America?”

That’s a question, if polling is any indication, that black voters are asking.