Beyond a velvet rope near the front door of Milwaukee’s Oak Barrel Public House last Wednesday night, Republican National Convention attendees who shelled out $500 could head upstairs to mingle with other VIPs at the Black Conservative Federation’s Kicks & Cocktails party.

Downstairs, a few dozen people mingled in the general admissions section — including a handful of Black delegates and convention-goers who said they're proud to be among the GOP's ever-present, ever-so-slightly growing minority of Black voters. 

As she celebrated with friends, Tasha Hoggatt, a Trump delegate from California, said her favorite RNC speaker was former Trump trade advisor, Peter Navarro — who dehumanized migrants as “a whole army of illiterate illegal aliens” in a Wednesday speech he delivered hours after stepping out of prison following a four-month stint behind bars for contempt of Congress.

"He's Hispanic and he loves his country," Hoggatt said. "What he went through is what Black and Hispanic communities go through all day long – accused of crimes that he did not commit."

After midnight, security at the event allowed general admissions attendees to traipse upstairs into the VIP section: where high-profile and up-and-coming Black conservatives spoke about Trump and the GOP’s efforts to draw in Black voters on a message heavy on blasting illegal immigration and the increased cost of housing, energy and food.

Quenton Jordan, a Chicago native and vice president of the Black Conservative Federation, said his organization has knocked on over 200,000 doors in Wisconsin and other swing states, and that immigration issues are front-and-center of their grassroots work.

"The Black community is watching, and seeing that the resources you’re giving are to people who are here mostly illegally," he said. “Those are the same resources that we’ve been asking for – for decades.”

Black conservatives and the GOP have their work cut out for them given the Black community’s decades of loyalty to Democrats – along with data showing that under President Joe Biden, Black employment and median income have grown.

And just two days after the RNC, Biden announced he won't seek re-election — a move that could undercut the RNC's own strategy. Biden instead endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of Black and Indian descent, to run for the top of the Democratic ticket.

A Harris presidential run could further energize Black voters — particularly those who have urged Biden to endorse Harris if he were to drop out.

"I think VP Harris as the nominee will shore up any Black support that may have shifted toward Trump during Biden’s presidency," Sacramento State University political science professor Christopher Towler said.

Towler said polling of Black voters is often poor and overstates support for Trump — and he said he doesn't "necessarily expect the bad polling to get much better just because Harris is on the ticket."

"But I am hopeful that, over time, Harris can run a campaign that equally highlights her abilities as a Black leader and the threat that Trump represents to the Black community, which will increase her support by bringing more Black voters off of their couches and into the electorate ready to vote in November," Towler said.

Meanwhile, the GOP has long faced skepticism over the earnestness of its efforts to broaden its bench: The Daily Beast reported that the RNC this year scrapped a plan to open 40 new voter outreach centers in Latino, Black, Asian American, Native American, Jewish, and veteran communities in battleground communities.

Still, RNC leaders touted this year's RNC lineup as featuring more Black GOP speakers than ever: including Florida Congressman Byron Donalds, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell, Texas Congressman Wesley Hunt, Democrat-turned-Republican Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, Michigan Congressman John James and New York mother and activist Madeline Brame — whose veteran son was murdered in Harlem.

Brame, who said that Trump is "victim of the same corrupt system" that her family has faced, garnered cheers and ovations for her speech. "Poor and neglected communities like mine are suffering, and who else in here is sick and tired of being sick and tired?" Brame said. "The Democratic Party that poor minorities have been loyal to for decades including myself, they betrayed us. They stabbed us in the back. But mine eyes have been open."

Several speakers tried to argue that, under Trump, Black people thrived — and that only under Trump can Black people once again have a shot at achieving the American dream.

"Black people were sold on hope," Rep. James said. "Now our streets are rife with crime, our kids can't read and illegals are getting better help from Democrats in four days than we've gotten in 400 years. Look, our daughters were sold on hope and now they're being forced on the playing fields and changing rooms of biological males. America was sold on hope and now the world's on fire, our borders are wide open and Americans are going into debt to pay for their groceries."

"If you don’t vote for Donald Trump, you ain’t Black," James proclaimed in his RNC speech — a twist on Biden's often-mocked 2020 exhortation to Charlamagne tha God on “The Breakfast Club,” when Biden said: "Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.”

Unlike other speakers, Hunt, Scott and Donalds all pronounced Harris' name correctly as they blasted her and Biden at the RNC. Scott claimed the two are "giving illegal immigrants free hotel rooms while veterans sleep on the street." And Donalds claimed Harris and Biden created "massive inflation" and are in the "pockets of the far-left teachers unions."

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, of Minnesota, used his speech to criticize Harris herself for opposing tariffs on China and accuse Harris of encouraging and enabling criminals and rioters in 2020.

Speaking to a group of African American delegates who gathered at the RNC last week, Scott took a more somber note: "As African-American conservatives, sometimes it's easy to feel like you are the only one. Anyone ever felt that way? You are not the only one. There are thousands, if not millions, all around the country who believe like we believe, pray like we believe, do what we know that needs to be done. If we keep doing, people will follow."

Scott said during an interview at the RNC, a young lady asked him if it's hard being a Black Republican.

"The second question was this — 'Are there people in leadership who want to keep Black conservatism in a corner?'" Scott said. "I said absolutely."

But, he added: "If you start looking around the country, you realize the team is growing. Our movement cannot be stopped."

Towler, who is the principal investigator of the Black Voter Project, said research suggests that just having more visible Black GOP lawmakers isn't enough to attract waves of Black voters. 

For example, Towler said when he polled Scott during the primary season, he performed "very poorly" among Black voters. 

"There's a good deal of scholarship that also suggests, yes, race matters when it comes to representation," Towler said. "But Black folk tend to look at policy stance, maybe even before race. And so just because you have a Black representative doesn't necessarily mean Black support if their policies are anti-Black or seem to be contradictory to the interests of the Black community. And so yes, the GOP might have more Black representation than ever before, but Byron Donalds and Tim Scott aren't fooling people into thinking all of a sudden that the GOP is for Black interest."

The RNC also brought out celebrities including influencer Amber Rose and rapper Forgiato Blow, who described Trump's own criminal record and his assassination attempt as allowing him to connect with the Black community.

Towler said his research on celebrity, politics and Black opinion shows that "no one's falling for that."

"There's not going to be a large amount of Black people that all of a sudden look at the Republican Party and say, 'Oh, you know, these celebrities are speaking up for them, we will too,'" Towler said.

Trump's also selling $399 gold sneakers to supporters on his website, which reads: "With a standout gold finish and the 'T' badge, these kicks are for true Patriots."

But critics have widely said that Trump's appeals to Black voters by relying on tropes like fancy sneakers or criminal records amount to promoting backwards racial stereotypes that hurt people of color.

Indeed — white nationalist Vincent James claimed that Trump's assassination would help Trump because: "if anything is gonna get the Black vote, it's getting shot at right after you just got convicted of multiple felonies."

THE POWER OF BLACK VOTERS

Since the mid-1990s, over 80% of Black voters have told Pew Research Center pollsters that they lean or are registered as Democratic — ranging from 86% in 1994, to 83% in 2023. 

The percentage of Black voters leaning or registered as Republican has remained relatively flat: from 13% in 1994, to 12% in 2023. 

Black voters are a loyal Democratic voting block: exit polls found 87% of Black voters backed Biden and 12% backed Trump. That's compared with 89% of Black voters saying they voted Clinton and 8% backing Trump in 2016.

"The Black community has been the strongest and most ardent supporters of the party in recent history," Towler said.

Black voters represented nearly one-fourth of Democratic primary voters in 2016, and roughly one-fifth of Biden's voters in 2020.

Black voters in battleground states have delivered sweeping victories for Democrats, including clinching South Carolina for Biden in 2020. A recent AP-NORC poll found half of Black Democrats wanted Biden to continue running — compared with one-third of white and Hispanic Democrats.

Meanwhile, the power of the Black vote could grow, with 34.4 million eligible Black voters expected in November 2024, according to Pew Research. That’s up 7% from 2020. 

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HISTORICAL LACK OF POLLING ON BLACK VOTERS

This year in particular, Republicans have claimed that Biden and Democrats are losing ground with Black voters, often pointing to polls and headlines they argue makes that case.

But Towler said there's no evidence that Black voters are leaving the Democratic Party at significant levels.

"It's overblown in these mainstream polls that don't accurately poll Black people," Towler said.

The Black Voter Project has conducted national polls of Black voters of its own dating back to its 2017 pilot national survey.

"The polling industry, as of the last couple of years, has had pressure on it to represent Black public opinion," Towler said. "And so they started to include sort of more tabulations and data that includes Black respondents, but the data that they present and collect is nowhere near accurate or representative. And so the industry's attempt to sort of satisfy this need to have a Black sample has only created poor, poor results, and in some ways, sort of false narratives about Black public opinion."

Tower said often, national surveys of about 1,000 could have 12% of responses from Black voters — coming out to about 120 responses.

"So for most of these small samples, one — the margin of error is astronomical, right?" Towler said. "If you're talking about 100 to 150 people, you're looking at an 8, 7, 9 percent margin of error. So even if you get 20% for Trump, it could be as low as 13% or as high as 27%."

"So there's not really telling us much," he said.

For example, 16% of 187 Black voters surveyed May 5-7 by YouGov said they would vote for Trump in November, with 65% for Biden.

A week later, 8% of 174 Black voters in a YouGov poll said they would support Trump, while 72% said they'd back Biden.

In 2020, polling saw a similar trend. An early May 2020 YouGov poll found 16% of 144 Black voters surveyed in early May supported Trump. The next week, that support apparently dropped to 4% of 150 Black voters.

Towler said in general, polls of over 1,000 Black voters in recent years have found that "Black support for Trump doesn't get any higher than 13%, 14% in most cases, and some polls have it under 10%."

WHAT THE POLLS THIS YEAR SHOW

So far this year, a handful of polls have surveyed more than 1,000 Black voters.

In a Black Voter Project's YouGov survey, 15% of 2,004 Black voters said they would vote for Trump while 62% selected Biden. The margin of error was 2.7 percent — meaning the percentage points could vary about that much. The survey was conducted from March 29 to April 19.

In 2020, the Black Voter Project didn't specifically ask voters about support for Biden versus Trump. Still, its June and July 2020 survey of 1,332 Black respondents found that 13% said they strongly or somewhat approved of Trump's presidency.

In April, a Pew Research Center survey found that 18% of 1,372 Black voters would vote for Trump or leaned toward him, while 77% answered Biden.

But in July, a subsequent Pew Research Center poll saw a lower level of Black support for Trump: with 13% of Black voters saying they back him.

Meanwhile, another July survey of 1,011 Black likely voters in seven battleground states found strong support for Biden or Harris over Trump: 76% versus 17%.

That Data for Progress/Split Ticket survey only looked at likely voters — which Towler said makes it hard to know whether it underestimates less engaged voters.

“The expectation now is that Harris will pull more voters off of the couch than Biden, and likely voter models don’t have the data to really address this claim,” Towler said.

Towler said before Biden's endorsement of Harris, this year’s limited polling suggests Trump may win an additional 1-2 percentage points among Black voters – an increase that’s within the margin of error.

"In 2016, Trump received less than 10% of the Black vote," he said. "In 2020 he received about 12% of the Black vote, and in 2024 it's looking like it might be like 12 to 14%. So, slight increases, but marginal."

"MORE FOR THE BLACK POPULATION THAN ANY PRESIDENT"

Trump and his surrogates have claimed that his presidency brought the nation its strongest economy ever — particularly for Black people.

"We've done more, and I say this, I say it proudly, more for the Black population than any president since Abraham Lincoln," Trump said while speaking at a Black Pastors roundtable at a Detroit church in June. "That's a big statement, and Crooked Joe Biden has done nothing for you except talk. It's only talk. The jobs were the best in the history of our country for African-Americans, for Black Americans."

At the Black Conservative Federation RNC's event, Tasha Hoggatt said Trump wants to make sure everyone has the opportunity to experience the American Dream.

"Trump's been helping Black communities when most people wouldn't," Hoggatt said. "It's about not giving people a handout, it's making sure people have resources."

Shana Gray, of Wisconsin, said the Republican Party's message on the economy — including a focus on consumer costs — is more reflective of what people are facing every day.

"Black people in this country, it’s time we give them – it's not owed to us, but we deserve to have a fair chance," Gray said. "It’s about time somebody will listen."

Kevin Anderson, a candidate for state office from Milwaukee, said he's bothered by governmental assistance and likes Trump's focus on lifting oneself up. Anderson said he hopes that tax cuts could help bring back factory jobs lost to China.

"People don’t understand when you take certain favors from the government, you make them the trustees of your household," Anderson said. "The Black community, we got the bad end of the stick. When the man was removed from the head of the household, they took away factory jobs and gave us assistance. We never got back on track. We’re still suffering from that."

But data shows that Black employment, home ownership and wages have risen since Biden took office.

In the month that Trump took office, the Black unemployment rate was 7.5%.

Black unemployment fell to a then-historic low of 5.5% in October 2019 before rising to 6.1% in February 2021 — before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In May 2020, Black unemployment reached a decade-high of 16.8%.

Under Biden, Black unemployment dropped from 9.3% in January 2021 to a new historic low of 4.8% in April 2023. 

Black unemployment has since risen to 6.3% as of June — compared with the overall unemployment rate of 4.1%. 

Overall, the number of Black men and women over the age of 16 with full-time jobs has risen from 16,448,000 in 2019, to 16,683,000 in 2023. 

Meanwhile, the number of Black people over 16 with part-time jobs rose from 2,933,000 to 2,991,000 in that same time period.

Overall, wages have risen above the rate of inflation, which is slowing. And the median income of Black households is up 16% under Biden: from $46,420 in 2017 to roughly $53,860 in 2022.

In the first three months of 2024, Black people represented 45.7% of homeowners, compared with 42.7% in the first quarter of 2017. 

Still — the racial income and wealth gap has persisted, as the Brookings Institution has documented.

For example, in 2019, white householders had a median household wealth of $187,300, compared with $14,100 for Black householders and $31,700 for Hispanic householders.

By 2021, Black householders' median wealth reached $24,520 — about one-tenth of white householders' $250,400 in median wealth. 

Meanwhile, violent and property crime rates in the nation have plummeted since the 1990s, according to Pew Research Center. And FBI data shows the murder rate has also plunged.

TAKING "BLACK JOBS"

Trump has increasingly tried to attract Black, and Hispanic, voters by claiming that undocumented immigrants are stealing "Black jobs."

“The fact is that his big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border. They’re taking Black jobs now,” Trump said during the June presidential debate. “They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs. And you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history,” he warned without specifying the danger.

Trump hasn't defined what exactly he means by "Black" or "Hispanic" jobs.

Navarro used his speech to warn of "murderers and rapists" and "a whole army of illiterate illegal aliens stealing the jobs of Black, brown and blue-collar Americans.”

Towler said there's evidence such appeals work for a "very small segment of the Black community" — primarily younger males.

Towler said in dozens of focus groups he's ran: "We do come across that one typically Black male participant who buys into the immigration talking points. And that does drive some of their opinion, and it might not even drive their opinion to support Trump, but it drives some of their opinion towards Democrats and sort of Democratic policies."

Towler said the biggest impact of such anti-immigrant rhetoric may be discouraging Black voters from turning out at all.

"In my opinion, those talking points, and most of the conservative talking points, are trying to create this false equivalency between the Democrats and Republicans, saying: 'You know, you might not buy into Republicans, but we're at least trying to do something where Democrats won't,'" Towler said. "And it'll not necessarily turn Black people towards the Republican Party to vote for Trump, but keep them at home, keep them from voting altogether."

Just one age group among Black voters saw a noticeable increase in support for Trump in 2020 — when 19% of Black voters aged 30-44 said they voted for Trump.

Other racial age groups that saw an increase in voting for Trump include whites aged 18-29 and Latinos aged 30-44. 

Towler said support for Trump among some young Black men may be driving his small boost in support.

"It's unrealistic to say that there's been any real statistical increase," Towler said. "But his support amongst the young Black community is higher than in the past, and that seems to be what's driving some of this narrative."

BLACK CONSERVATISM'S LONG ROOTS

At the Black Conservative Federation RNC's event, attendees spoke of the long effort to draw back voters to the party of Lincoln.

Towler said "there's always been a Black conservative, or Black Republican segment of the community."

"Ideals of Black conservatism also contain elements of self-responsibility and self-determination, which date back to Frederick Douglass," Towler said. 

Towler said throughout history, conservative appeals have worked in the Black community — "to a certain extent."

"This is not something unique to Trump," he said.

He said that Trump and his MAGA movement's anti-Black reputation means that Black voters who support him are especially highlighted. 

"Today it looks very contradictory because of the way that the MAGA movement has set its agenda very clearly against racial progress," Towler said.

"It's like: 'How can you be for Trump when he says such anti-Black things?'" Towler said. "But it really is just that there is a conservative element to the Black community, of people within the Black community who oftentimes tend to be younger, that de-prioritize their racial identity and prioritize other things, such as traditional family values, patriarchy, right? And buy into some of these more conservative ideals."

Towler said Black conservatism "often still includes a recognition of racial systems and racism."

"They look more towards economics, more towards family structure, traditional systems, more towards religious beliefs to dictate and sort of drive their opinions rather than their racial identity," Towler said. 

Kevin Anderson, a candidate for state office from Milwaukee, said he's drawn to the GOP focus on traditional family values.

"The way Trump says he wants to make America great again, I would like to make men the head of the household again," he said. "Because in the African-American community, there's a lack of respect for the man."

Hoggatt, the California delegate, said that the GOP's efforts to court minority voters are making at least some headway because Black and Hispanic communities tend to be "very conservative."

"The Democratic Party wants to destroy us — to make us slaves, to take over our lives," Hoggatt said. "What people escaped other countries for."

Gray, the Wisconsin Republican, said she's a fan of Trump's working a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, and said she supports more such reform.

She said Trump — now with a conviction for falsifying business records as part of a scheme to keep information about extramarital affairs from voters — uniquely has the background to push for more changes to the criminal justice system.

"Not only is he an advocate for that, he has the experience," she said. "He got to see what it is to be Black in America."