Trump chases Black support, but struggles to build an organization

The Trump campaign is scrambling to build an organization to take advantage of promising signals of support from Black and Latino voters, after hiring a young rising Republican star to manage its outreach to minority voters — then parting ways with him just as the general election began.

The campaign hired Derek Silver as its executive director in charge of coalitions from last October until March 2024, according to his LinkedIn. Two sources familiar with his departure told Semafor he left abruptly in early March, close to Super Tuesday. Trump aides are tight-lipped as to what, exactly, happened to merit his sudden exit. Silver did not respond to several requests for comment.

Presidential campaigns of both parties typically bundle outreach to ethnic groups, faith communities, and others under a single “coalitions” heading. Silver worked as Ron DeSantis’ director of Jewish outreach while still a law student. In 2020, he assisted similar state efforts to boost Trump with Jewish voters. Trump’s campaign tapped Silver in October to lead its coalitions division. Six months later, the campaign is seeking a replacement.

The campaign’s aborted start to turnout and messaging efforts comes as polls show a significant opportunity for Trump with nonwhite voters, who are trending Republican in numerous surveys. With the RNC still retooling around new Trump-backed leadership, including a reevaluation of the party’s existing outreach efforts to minority communities, it raises questions about the GOP’s ability to seize the opportunity and chip off a foundational block of the Democratic base.

On paper, Trump seems well-equipped to make a run at Black voters. Not only are recent polls promising, with a number showing him cracking 20% support with Black voters, there’s a historic number of Black lawmakers who can serve as surrogates, including Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida and Wesley Hunt of Texas. There’s also a high-profile potential running mate in South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.

“Go where the fish are,” Hunt told Semafor, recounting a conversation he had with Trump. “Keep doing what you’re doing and just keep running on the issues that matter most to the Black community, which is, today, pocketbook issues.”

Trump has also already proven he can make some inroads outside the typically white GOP base — Latino voters swung 8 points in his direction from 2016 to 2020, according to data from Democratic firm Catalist. A number of polls show him holding or expanding on those gains.

But there’s also increasing doubt about the party’s ability to capitalize on these opportunities amid concerns about funding, organization, and basic competence. Democrats have decades of experience turning out the vote in their more diverse coalition and the Biden campaign is staffing up early while Trump’s operation moves more slowly.

Last cycle, the Trump campaign chose Hannah Castillo to manage its dozen or so coalition directors — Black Voices for Trump, Women for Trump, Latinos for Trump — in March 2019, well over a year before the election. That the spot is currently unfilled this far into 2024 suggests a bumpier ride this time.

The campaign’s struggles to tap into Black communities aren’t going unnoticed, especially among Black Republican Trump supporters who have created their own vehicles to recruit voters who’ve fallen out of favor with Biden.

“We’re going to have roundtable discussion groups, boots on the ground,” Pastor Darrell Scott, a Trump supporter and co-founder of the Garfield Project, a new conservative Black outreach program. “We’re going to do a lot of the things that need to be done, but we’re going to target the Black community with them, whereas the Republican Party has not historically targeted the Black community.”

If there really is a rapid society-wide shift away from Democrats among nonwhite voters, the quality of a campaign can only do so much to stem the tide. Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini makes the argument in a new book, “Party of the People,” that the same education split that Trump fostered between white voters in 2016 is spreading to Black and Latino voters who feel increasingly alienated by the more left-leaning, college-educated Democratic party.

“Our coalition message to Black and Hispanic communities this election is simple: If you want strong borders, safe neighborhoods, rising wages, quality jobs, school choice and the return of the strongest economy in over 60 years, then vote for Donald J. Trump,“ Lynne Patton, a senior advisor to Trump, said in a statement.

A memo shared with Semafor by the Trump campaign emphasized Trump’s policy accomplishments, including opportunity zones for struggling neighborhoods and increased funding to historically black colleges and universities, and suggested emphasizing how crime, immigration, and pandemic closures disproportionately impact Black voters. The document included mention of the First Step Act — a criminal justice reform bill Trump signed that he has emphasized less since the 2020 election. It also referenced Biden’s support for COVID vaccine mandates.

But the campaign has not reintroduced a pledge similar to the so-called “Platinum Plan” Trump put out in 2020, which contained a number of specific proposals aimed at Black voters.

“Donald Trump was a fraud as a businessman, he was a fraud as a President and he’s a fraud as a presidential candidate — which explains why his outreach to Black voters continues to be insulting, thoughtless and insincere,” the Biden campaign’s Black Media Director, Jasmine Harris, told Semafor. “Black voters remain some of the most informed and engaged voters every election and come November they will get behind Joe Biden and Kamala Harris who put Black Americans at the forefront of their administrations work: protecting our health care, helping Black unemployment hit a record low and Black businesses starting up at the fastest in thirty years.”

NBC News reports that the Biden campaign has been using its cash advantage to staff up earlier than Trump in key states. “Trump’s advisers would not disclose staffing levels, but his ground game still seems to be at a nascent stage,” per their reporting. “His campaign hired state directors in Pennsylvania and Michigan last week, people familiar with the recruitment process said.”

At NOTUS, Jasmine Wright and Calen Razor report on concerns around the RNC’s handling of its once-vaunted minority outreach centers: “A source familiar with the committee’s planning said there are about a half-dozen minority outreach offices open across the country; the party had planned for 40 offices to be open this year.”