The strategy was simple.
Donald Trump would attend a Black journalism convention in Chicago and go after Kamala Harris for her record.
The former president’s advisers reportedly urged him to portray Harris as a “radical” and a “liberal prosecutor” from California who, as vice president, utterly failed to secure the southern border. This strategy would enable Trump to simultaneously excite his base and steer clear of making personal attacks that could turn off undecided voters.
But from the moment Trump’s interview began on Wednesday at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention in Chicago, his predilections got the better of him.
An appearance intended to augment his relationship with Black voters might have actually caused irreparable damage.
Trump went on an unflinchingly aggressive tirade against Harris, falsely suggesting that the first Black and Asian American woman vice president selectively floats in and out of Blackness when it suits her. Trump claimed to be the “best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln” and even attacked one of the Black women moderators, calling her introduction “very rude” after she read aloud the critical comments Trump has made about people of color over the years.
The interview, which occurred less than 100 days from the election, refocused the media attention on the former president and unleashed a wave of criticism not just from the left, but also from many on the right who are desperate to put a Republican back in the White House. And while the tense interview is likely to excite Trump’s most ardent supporters, it risks alienating undecided voters — especially Black voters — who are turned off by the chaotic personal attacks that embolden the hyperpartisanship tearing the country apart.
Even as Trump surrogates fanned across the country to do damage control following the interview, criticism mounted on the right.
“The challenge for Trump is that questioning her race reminds independent voters of why they abandoned him in 2020,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. “They don’t like the divisiveness, the personal insults, and the chaos that follows up.”
Trump has garnered a lot of media for his incendiary antics. He made headlines by calling his opponents names and mocking their physical appearance. He even once called white supremacists “very fine people.”
But in the past two weeks, Harris took the lead in the polls in all swing states.
And the media’s focus lasered in on her, which seemed to prompt Trump to tap into his favorite campaign strategy of mean chaos, Conant said.
“Trump’s campaign wants this [election] to be a referendum on the Biden-Harris record,” said Conant. “But Trump can’t give up the spotlight.”
This election cycle, Trump has embraced the widespread assumption his second term was imminent. During this election cycle, enthusiasm for the campaign of Joe Biden waned, with many Democratic voters feeling that the president has struggled to deliver on his promises.
Widespread student loan cancellation was sacked by the U.S. Supreme Court. A national voting rights bill never materialized. And, on his watch, the conservative justices on the high court overturned the landmark case that ensured women could access abortion.
Biden, 81, has also faced right-wing criticism stemming from Republican-led investigations into his son Hunter and concerns about his age and health, which were amplified by fellow Democrats following his disastrous presidential debate with Trump in June.
The polls found Trump leading Biden in the most critical states, prompting his allies to assume victory in November was likely.
But within one week of Harris replacing Biden at the top of the ticket, she eliminated Trump’s lead in seven battleground states, according to a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. Harris leads Trump by one point in all swing states. In Georgia, they are tied.
The polls have been a hard pill for the Trump campaign to swallow. This campaign is forced to reckon with an opponent who genuinely excited wide swaths of voters in states needed to win the White House. The racial attacks that Trump launched on Wednesday risked turning off undecided voters.
On cable news on Thursday, his surrogates sought to shift attention away from the convention by amplifying Trump’s policy victories, reminding voters of the gains the conservative agenda enjoyed while he was in the White House.
“It was almost as if he was trying to say anything he could to insult Black people,” said Sharon D. Wright Austin, a political scientist at the University of Florida. “I think there’s some [Black] people who might have considered voting for him have now changed their minds as a result of that. He didn’t help himself by making that appearance and saying those things.”
Black voters have long been a core voting bloc for the Democratic base. In 2020, Biden won support from 92% of Black voters. But a May survey from the Pew Research Center showed that Black men were drifting away, with 1 in 5 saying they would back Trump in a hypothetical rematch.
Austin said that these voters, as well as young Black voters, were very likely turned off by the interaction Trump had with the three Black women journalists last week.
“I think Trump started to think he was so invincible that he couldn’t lose,” Austin said. “And now, the tables have turned. He’s in shock and is on the defensive and is alienating a lot of younger voters of all races — but especially younger Black voters.”
Katherine Tate, a political scientist at Brown University, said in an email said that Trump’s attack against Harris’ ancestry “will not work this time.”
“Harris considers herself Black,” she said. “She is proud of her Indian heritage … [and] this attack about her racial identity doesn’t resonate with minority voters.”
For white conservatives, Tate said, the attack acts as a dog whistle.
“They are learning there is something not right about Harris,” Tate said, adding that it is likely young white voters will be turned off by the racial attacks.
Said Tate: “Voters in the center may turn against Trump if he wages a racial campaign against Harris.”