Black voters discuss voting for Trump; GOP woman will choose Hillary
Presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has a strong showing with white men, has lost ground with white Republican women since the party conventions according to recent polls.
But Trump’s campaign has also recently added an African American strategist to try and woo black voters. FOX 4 reporter Shaun Rabb visited with both: a white Republican woman voting for Hillary Clinton and black conservative voters.
Some black conservative voters say Trump’s traditional views are what gets them to vote for an unlikely candidate.
“I will be voting for Donald Trump,” explained Chad Jackson. “I think it’s a shame how the Democratic Party tramples over the secrecy of what marriage is and what family is. I believe abortion is murder, the list goes on and on.”
“I’m trusting that [Trump is] surrounding himself with people who can clean up some of the things that he’s made some unfortunate statements about,” said Lee Patterson.
Other black conservative voters say they are voting for Trump because of all the controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton’s emails and Benghazi.
“Trump won’t let you down, in my opinion, as opposed to Hillary,” said Prentiss Benson. “If that was my sons in Benghazi, I would have to look for another candidate, and Trump is the candidate that I would pick.”
But these voters are by themselves, for the most part. Most national polls put Trump at either one or two percent with African Americans.
“There’s a lot of black people that’s gonna vote for Trump that probably would not vote for another Republican,” said Eugene Ralph.
But some black Republicans, like Larry Thompson, are not voting for the Republican candidate.
“For me, Donald Trump has been on both sides of every issue,” said Thompson. “So I really don’t know where the man stands.”
Thompson said he will vote for Republicans down the ballot, but will not be voting for either Trump or Clinton.
Military vet Julia Sias is one of a growing group of GOP women not voting for Trump.
“I am going to vote for Hillary. I just can’t put it beyond myself to vote for someone who has a very short fuse and that makes erratic statements,” the military vet said. “None of the candidates are actually what I would prefer to see running. But in this case, you have to vote for the lesser of the evil.”
Sias is one of a growing list of Republican woman to publicly state they will not back the GOP nominee. Other notable names include former California GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, former Jeb Bush aide Sally Bradshaw and the granddaughter of former GOP presidential nominee John McCain.
But Trump is making some efforts to keep GOP women from defecting. The Republican nominee added new names to his economic advisory team on Friday, including eight women. Last week, the economic team did not have any women.