"Hillary Clinton Cannot Afford to Lose Black Voters" [View all]

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Turnout will drop compared to Obama's two elections, but she's about to roll out a policy platform aimed directly at African-American voters.




June 3, 2015 Barack Obama didn't need to do much—almost anything—to win record turnout from African-American voters. Hillary Clinton will need to pull out all the stops to score just a fraction of that support.

An exaggeration? Black political leaders don't think so.

"Make no mistake, there will be some drop-off," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, whose comments echoed those of other influential African-American Democrats.

Indeed, black leaders concede it will be nearly impossible for Clinton to replicate the level of turnout Obama's candidacy generated among this core demographic—a group of voters central to the national coalition necessary for a Democrat to win the White House. So she'll need to coax them to the polls by honing specific messages about policies relevant to the black community, something her team says she's preparing to unveil.


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That motivation will come partly from policy proposals and partly from focusing on parts of Clinton's biography, the campaign says. Speaking in South Carolina last week, she put deliberate focus on her early career experiences at the Children's Defense Fund and her work for women and children. The campaign is also talking about specific policy positions that are relevant to the black community—health care, a minimum-wage increase, substance-abuse issues, and perhaps most noticeably, criminal-justice reform, which Clinton addressed in a speech at Columbia back in April. Clinton aides are quick to note that it was her first policy speech as a candidate—and with its proposals to provide body cameras for police officers nationwide and end the "era of mass incarceration," it was a direct response to unrest over police activity in Baltimore and other cities.

"Her speech in New York was amazing," said Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina state legislator who backed Obama in 2008 but is now supporting Clinton. "It's a serious plank in terms of African-American outreach, it's one that can be developed, it's one that can help galvanize not just your typical participants … but also a new generation of voices."




http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/hillary-clinton-cannot-afford-to-lose-black-voters-20150603