Trump courts Christian group, then woos black vote in Philadelphia

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke to an influential group of conservative Christian activists, before heading to Philadelphia for a rally aimed at courting black voters.
The former president gave the keynote speech at an event organised by the Faith & Freedom Coalition, a group overseen by long-time Trump ally Ralph Reed, in Washington.
The gathering highlighted issues important to conservative Christian voters ahead of the November 5 election, and participants will likely be eager to hear more about Trump’s stance on abortion.
Trump has tried to carve out a political middle ground on the subject.
He has claimed credit for appointing three right-wing justices to the Supreme Court who helped overturn the Roe v. Wade decision two years ago, eliminating a nationwide right to abortion in a moment of triumph for conservatives.
Trump has recently said he would not support a federal ban on abortion, preferring to leave the issue to individual states.
Later in the day, Trump will hold a campaign rally at Temple University in a historically black area of Philadelphia, long a stronghold for Democrats.
Trump won just 5% of the vote in precincts within a half-mile radius of Temple’s main campus, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The Trump campaign has made courting black and Hispanic voters, who make up more than half of Philadelphia’s population, a priority this cycle, encouraged by some opinion polls that indicate he made be gaining ground with these voters.
While Trump has little chance of winning the city – President Joe Biden, a Democrat, won 81.4% of the votes in Philadelphia County in 2020 – Trump could still boost his chances by narrowing the margin in Philadelphia and surrounding counties so critical to the overall tally in Pennsylvania, a battleground state.
William Rosenberg, a political science professor at Drexel University, said he believed Trump’s main goal was projecting his outreach to black voters nationally, similar to the rally he held in the Bronx borough of New York City last month.
“It’s a play to get on national TV to say you are in Philadelphia to make the case that this is a black community,” Rosenberg said. “Then perhaps you convince some swing voters that Donald Trump is not so bad.”
Democrats have set up posters, billboards and kiosks in Philadelphia and on the Temple campus to promote Biden’s policies, including his efforts to forgive student debt, as well as to criticise Trump’s record with the black community.
State lawmaker Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democrat, said black voters remember Trump’s history promoting the bigoted conspiracy theory that questioned whether Barack Obama, the country’s first African American president, was born in the US, and policies that he pursued that hurt the black working class.
“Donald Trump is in a black place, but Donald Trump does not give a (expletive) about black people,” Kenyatta said at a press event at a Biden campaign office in Philadelphia, adding that Trump would “get the type of welcome he deserves” from the city.