On the door for the McLennan County Republican Party headquarters on a February night, a flyer read, Black Voices for Trump. Inside, 50 or so faces virtually all of them white looked up at the speaker before them.
How many of you are tired of being called a racist? asked the speaker, KCarl Smith, who is Black.
Almost everyone in the crowd raised their hands or nodded solemnly.
Smith, a native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who grew up in Alabama, came to Waco in a long-shot attempt to energize support among Black voters for President Donald Trump. Finding none in the audience, Smith spent most of the evening coaching white Republican activists on how to better engage with voters of color.
The meeting was one of a series of events the Trump campaign has held nationwide to chip away at his broad unpopularity with Black voters and flip the narrative that he is hostile to people of color. The presidents reelection campaign has also sought to do that with swag targeted at Black millennials emblazoned with the word Woke and by hosting online Black Voices for Trump Real Talk events. But it has proved a tall task, given Trumps racially divisive behavior and tweets since hes been in office.
Smith said he came to Waco to have real talk with Republicans about delivering the message of liberty to people who might not look like them.
Republicans are terrible when it comes to engaging minorities. I want to show them not only the importance of it, but suggest to them how to do it, he said. The party always talks about wanting to be more diverse, more inclusive, but whatever theyre doing they need to stop because its not working.
Reaching a diverse group of voters will grow increasingly important to the party in Texas, where the GOP is overwhelmingly white in a state where the white share of the population is shrinking. And any efforts will face significant opposition from Texas Democrats, who say activating the Black vote is crucial to their November chances. The Texas Democratic Party announced last week that it had launched a joint effort to contact 1.5 million Black registered voters in Texas to promote registration and mobilization.
Make no mistake about it, Black voters are the backbone of the Texas Democratic Party, said Serita Robinson, Black constituency organizer for the state Democratic Party. Black voters are the key to winning Texas. Our investments now are going to make the difference between winning and losing in November.
For the sake of the Texas GOPs future, Smith said, party leaders need to do more than just pay lip service to the need to be more representative of their constituents. But in a national cultural moment of intense racial strife, party leaders face serious questions about whether they can make inroads.
The daunting challenge didnt seem to rattle the February events attendees. The crowd included a handful of aspiring congressional candidates and the chair of a local Republican womens club. But the racial makeup of the room laid bare the partys numbers problem when it comes to voters of color.
At one point, the chair of the McLennan County GOP lamented, I invited every Black friend I know, and they didnt show!
Smith, the creator of the Frederick Douglass Republican Engagement Strategy, seemed unfazed by the fact that the only other Black person in the room was a reporter. I need to preach to the choir, because the choir needs to know how to bring in new choir members and sing a new song, Smith said.
As our country becomes more colored, weve got to learn to talk to people who dont traditionally look Republican but have those values, he said. ...
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