A new Biden ad quotes Trump saying, “Of course, I hate these people.” The ad explains, “Donald Trump disrespecting black folk is nothing new.” The ad claims that Trump “called for the execution of 5 innocent black and brown teenagers,” “stood with violent white supremacists,” “warned of a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the next election,” “was sued for refusing to rent his apartments to black families,” and “vowed to be a ‘dictator’ who wants revenge on his enemies.” The ad ends again with Trump saying, “Of course I hate these people.”
It’s reminiscent of Biden’s 2012 claim that Mitt Romney would "put you all back in chains."
With polls showing Trump’s average support among blacks at 21%, twice what Trump’s voting share in 2020, the Biden campaign is freaking out. Among blacks between 18 and 49, 27% support Trump. Even CNN noted that this increase in Trump’s support “could be deadly to Joe Biden's campaign. It's a huge alarm. It's spiraling. It's ambulance. It's police sirens. It's any alarm you can think of.” If this change in black voting had occurred in 2020, Trump would have won Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Rasmussen Reports surveyed likely voters in 2020 and 2024 to determine whether they thought Republicans or Democrats had done the most for blacks. In May 2020, only 18% of blacks thought that Republicans had done the most, but that increased to 32% in May 2024. Large changes had also occurred among Republicans, whites, and all likely voters.
There have also been large changes in people’s views about whether they think racial issues are discussed too much or too little. While 60% of blacks thought that there was too little discussion in 2020, that had fallen to 46% in 2024. But there have been similar changes in groups across the board. Likely voters went from being evenly split on the issue to believing by a two-to-one ratio that politicians discuss racial issues too much.
The surveys also show that voters overwhelmingly think that politicians raise racial issues to get elected, not because they want to address the real problems. Generally, there has been very little change in people’s opinions on this issue. While Republicans have become more likely to believe that politicians do this to get elected, Democrats have become less likely to believe this.
Hopefully, people are too tired of the race-mongering to believe the counterfactual claims in the Biden ad. “Of course I hate these people” was a comment from Trump’s appearance on CNN’s Larry King to discuss an ad entitled “Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!” Trump ran this ad in several New York City newspapers in the wake of the infamous Central Park Gang Rape, where a white woman was raped repeatedly by multiple people and left for dead. Days later, five black men were arrested. But Trump’s ad never mentioned the race of those who committed the crime. Trump’s ad was about overall crime in the city, and about the need to do something about it. On CNN, Trump said he wasn’t prejudging the teens. So the claim about calling for the “execution of 5 innocent black and brown teenagers” was false.
Trump didn’t stand “with violent white supremacists” was based on Trump’s 2017 remarks from Charlottesville. But the “very fine people on both sides” comment missed that Trump wasn’t talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists who he explicitly condemned: “And you had people, and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.”
The “bloodbath” comment was also misrepresented as a threat of political violence, as it has been continually in the media. Trump wasn’t saying that there would be violence if he lost. He was saying there would be an economic “bloodbath” from the destruction of the American automobile industry if he wasn’t elected and China was allowed to export its heavily subsidized electric cars into the US.
Regarding Trump “refusing to rent his apartments to black families,” the 1975 agreement with the government had no admission of guilt on the part of Trump’s father or Trump’s part. Trump’s 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal,” explained: “What we didn’t do was rent to welfare cases – white or black.”
The polling indicates that voters are wising up to Democrats’ claims of racism. There is a chance that people will see through the desperate claims, and that they will backfire. While Biden campaigned in 2020 on the pretense of bringing Americans together, Trump is the one actually breaking down the racial divisions in American politics.
Lott is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. He served as senior adviser for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department.