Grrr!! GOP Bets on Black Conservatives As Key to Victory: 'We Change or We Die'

[hedda_foil]

Ten years after its "autopsy" of Mitt Romney's 2012 loss to Barack Obama concluded that the Republican Party's biggest problem was its failure to appeal to voters of color, 2022 is shaping up as a breakthrough year for the GOP on at least one diversity front: Black candidates. From Georgia, where high-profile Black Republicans seek nominations for both governor and senator, to Michigan, where former Detroit Police Chief James Craig is the odds-on favorite to go up against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, to a lineup of well-funded House and Senate candidates poised to break the record for the number of Black Republicans elected to Congress, a decade-long effort to broaden the appeal of the GOP is finally bearing fruit—and could play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.

It remains to be seen whether the coming wave of Black conservative candidates can spur legions of Black voters, the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency, to vote Republican. But judging by recent races featuring a Black GOP candidate—lieutenant governor races in Virginia and North Carolina, a Kentucky attorney general campaign and the last two U.S. Senate races in Michigan—the party has reason to be hopeful. Exit polls showed these Black Republican candidates drew slightly larger, potentially decisive shares of Black votes compared to the white Republicans running alongside them for other offices in their states. Indeed, North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and unsuccessful U.S. Senate hopeful John James in Michigan were the top vote-getting Republicans in their states in their most recent races, indicating they both excited the GOP base and drew crossover votes.

"Some Republicans are savvy enough to understand that if they win 10 to 15 percent of Black voters in state and local elections, they can win—and there are ways to actually do this," says Johns Hopkins University political science professor Leah Wright Rigueur, author of the 2016 book, The Loneliness of the Black Republican.

One of the most important test cases this year may come in the Michigan governor's race. Craig's campaign to unseat Whitmer, Rigueur says, is "not about winning 100 percent of the Black folks, it's not even about winning 50 percent. It is about winning just enough to push them over the edge and make the difference." Craig echoes that, telling Newsweek his status as a native Detroiter and well-regarded tenure as the city's top cop grants him an authenticity with Black audiences that will "open some minds to what I have to say."

https://www.newsweek.com/2022/02/18/gop-bets-black-conservatives-key-victory-we-change-we-die-1677030.html

It's hard to believe any black American could vote for a party whose primary message is White Supremacy.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

1. LOL!

Good luck with that.

They had a shot building some POC support before Obama but they decided to go full nazi instead.

[PortTack]

2. Of course...the article is from Newsweek which is now just another right leaning rag

[kimbutgar]

7. My sister had been reading Newsweek since she was in high school when a relative brought

Hera subscription. When TFG was elected she noticed the articles were Democrats bad, republicans and TFG saving the country. She stopped subscribing after 50 years.

[TlalocW]

3. I remember an article

Where it was just quote after quote from election year after election year, every two years going back to the 90s of some republican saying something about needing to reach out to minority voters. Lost presidential races, congressional, governor. Some republican at some level said, "We need to do better outreach for minority voters." We should be wary of course, but thirty years of saying that after a loss and then white supremacy business as normal is not setting off alarm bells. I may be wrong.

TlalocW

[childfreebychoice]

4. No it's not. My friends in SC keep voting for scott

Cus he is a "church going, god fearing man, and he's black." They tell me I don't understand, being a black atheist and all. Other friends bash child tax credits, which they call unearned income tax credits, and think welfare should have time limit. I am former nurse/ret psychiatrist, and hubby is ret lawyer...they don't understand how we as high taxed childfree, successful blacks can vote for dems, who just want to "give our hard earned money to undeservings." I am seeing more and more young, successful, childfree blacks, voting for rethugs... racism be darn. Enuf to make me nervous about 22/24

[jimfields33]

5. Especially if they only need 10 to 15 percent of the vote.

That’s frightening because its a pretty low percentage needed.

[alphafemale]

6. Because that has worked so well for them before.

Not