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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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Former president Donald Trump's remarks before a gathering of Black journalists on Wednesday could see his support among Black voters dwindle further, experts told Newsweek.
The Republican nominee sparked a backlash after questioning Kamala Harris' racial identity during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists' annual convention in Chicago on Wednesday.
He falsely claimed that Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president, had in the past only promoted her Indian heritage and only began identifying as Black more recently.
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"I didn't know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don't know, is she Indian or is she Black?" Trump said.
Harris, the likely Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden quit the 2024 race, was born to a Jamaican father and Indian mother and has long identified as both Black and Asian. She called Trump's comments "the same old show" of divisiveness and disrespect.
Trump's appearance at the convention became heated immediately when ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott, one of the event's moderators, began by asking why Black voters should support Trump, given his history of racist and incendiary language about Black people and people of color.
"You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were not born in the United States, which is not true," Scott said.
"You have told four congresswomen of color, who were American citizens, to go back to where they came from. You have used words like 'animal' and 'rabid' to describe Black district attorneys. You have attacked Black journalists, calling them a 'loser,' saying the questions they ask are, quote, 'stupid' and 'racist.' You've had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. So my question, sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you, why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?"
Trump responded by calling it "horrible" and "a very rude introduction" and described ABC as a "fake" network. He claimed he had "been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln."
While he did create the Opportunity Zone Program as part of his 2017 tax plan, which offered millions in capital gains tax breaks to developers to invest in low-income zones chosen by the states, a 2023 paper published in the Journal of Urban Economics found Opportunity Zones had "small positive effects" in areas with above median Black population in some states, although the effect was muted elsewhere. And in 2019, Trump signed a bipartisan bill intended to provide more than $250 million a year to historic Black colleges, reported the Associated Press, but the significance of Trump's contributions is disputed.
The fallout over the interview comes as Trump is seeking to court Black voters, a crucial Democratic voting bloc that propelled Biden to the White House in 2020. Trump won the support of just 8 percent of Black voters in 2020, while 92 percent had voted for Biden.
Polling earlier this year had indicated Trump was making inroads with Black voters, while Black support for Biden appeared to be slipping. Any gains Trump makes among the demographic could be helpful, especially in the battleground states that could swing November's election.
However, more recent polls have indicated that Trump's gains among Black voters have eroded since Biden quit the presidential race and endorsed Harris to replace him at the top of the Democratic ticket. Polling also shows that Trump remains widely unpopular with Black Americans.
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University and director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, said Trump's remarks from Wednesday will likely be used repeatedly against Trump in the run-up to Election Day.
"While it will take a few days to measure, Trump's performance at NABJ has the makings of becoming viral," Gillespie told Newsweek. "A lot of people saw Trump's behavior, and they're going to talk about it to their friends and family. While there are Black Trump supporters who will not be swayed by his behavior yesterday, he gave his opponents a compelling talking point to use against him in conversations with undecided friends and family members."
Trump campaign spokesperson Janiyah Thomas told Newsweek: "What impacts our historic gains with Black voters is President Trump's record when compared to Kamala's. The Democrats and biased media keep trying to make this about race and gender but voters know this is about success versus failure."
Katherine Tate, a political science professor at Brown University, agreed that Trump's remarks probably will not put off his Black supporters, but will do little to win over undecided Black voters.
"I think Trump presented his authentic self to Black voters," Tate told Newsweek. "He had this bizarre story about Harris's ethnicity. He repeated the lie that Democrats want to abort newborn babies. He attacked the Black journalist."
She added: "This is the same Trump who governed for four years. I believe Black Trump supporters were not put off by this interview. But he did not pull in Black independents. Had he shown an interest in winning Black voters he would have tried harder."
Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University, believes the remarks "are likely to accelerate the downward spiral" in support for Trump among Black voters.
"The insulting nature and ignorance the remarks betray could help some of Trump's die-hard supporters, who were already behind him, but are also likely to damage views of Trump across the board with other voters," he told Newsweek.
"They remind voters of the contentiousness that characterized his presidency, which many voters rejected and do not recall nostalgically."
Grant Davis Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, noted that Trump's comments were "directed to someone whom people can choose to vote for, over Trump."
He told Newsweek that "much more important than Trump's comments, however, is the simple fact that Black voters have a woman of color to vote for this time. It's still a bit early in her process to see if she can galvanize Black voters the way that Obama did, but it's possible, and in a close race, it could matter."
Trump's remarks about Harris' racial identity "play into a long history of using racially-charged language," Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science and director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London.
They would be devastating for any other candidate, Gift told Newsweek. "For Trump, they may just get lost in the fog of seemingly infinite offensive comments he's made about communities of color."
Update 8/2/24, 3:09 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Janiyah Thomas.
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