U.S. Republican presidential contender Donald Trump is making repeated appeals for support from African-American voters at the unlikeliest of venues, at rallies where almost all the voters are white.
Trump made his latest pitch for black votes Saturday at a political rally in the Midwest farm state of Iowa, telling the largely white crowd that he blamed decades of Democratic policies for the "deplorable conditions in many of our inner cities." He has called Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent in the November 8 presidential election, a bigot for not improving the plight of blacks and Hispanics.
“As a father, as a builder, as an American," Trump said, "it offends my sense of right and wrong to see anyone living in such conditions. They are living in terrible, terrible conditions. Beyond belief: bad, bad, bad.”
National political surveys show Clinton has amassed a huge lead over Trump among black and Hispanic voters, the fastest growing segment of the American electorate, while he holds a much smaller lead among white voters. Political analysts say his appeal for minority voters is aimed at cutting into Clinton's edge among black and Hispanic voters, but also an effort to win more support from women and politically moderate Republicans who might be inclined to support Clinton because they view Trump as a racist.
From the earliest days of his campaign, Trump branded undocumented immigrants pouring over the Mexican border into the U.S. as rapists and criminals. He continues to call for construction of a border wall to thwart the stream of migrants entering the United States, a signature of his campaign, but has wavered with shifting positions in the last few days about his vow to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States to their home countries.