While Donald Trump overwhelmingly earned enough votes and delegates to claim his party’s nomination for president ahead of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week, the business tycoon has had trouble securing support in the African-American community.
A July 13 Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist Poll of Ohio voters revealed that Trump polls at an astonishing zero percent among African-Americans. The poll also showed similar results in other states, including the swing state of Pennsylvania.
But Johnnie Morgan, a Republican African-American delegate at the convention, wants to make it clear: Trump does indeed have support in the black community and African-Americans would be better served under a Trump administration.
“I’m motivated to support Donald Trump and the inner city, where I’m from, needs more jobs and more opportunities and I’m confident he will bring change,” said Morgan just prior to walking inside Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland as the Republican National Convention kicked off Monday.
Morgan is one of 18 Republican African-American delegates at the convention, according to the Republican National Committee.
It’s the lowest GOP total of Black delegates in the last three presidential cycles.
In 2004, 167 African-Americans delegates attended the RNC convention as President George W. Bush was renominated, according to NBC News.
In 2008, 36 African-Americans attended as delegates as Sen. John McCain was nominated to run against then-Sen. Barack Obama, and in 2012 there were 28 African-American delegates as Mitt Romney was nominated.
This week, Trump’s former “Apprentice” star and District resident Omarosa Manigault was appointed director of African-American outreach for Donald Trump’s campaign.
“It happened this week,” Manigault, an African-American woman, told MSNBC at the GOP convention. “It’s really an extension of the work that the National Diversity Coalition for Trump has already been doing and so I’m very happy to take up that cause for Donald Trump.”
Morgan, who was born and raised by Democrat parents in Los Angeles, said he switched parties in 1982 “when I found out that my ideology and philosophy was more in line with Republicans.”
“I was told that Democrats were for blacks and the poor while Republicans were for rich and white,” he said. “I am black, but I never considered myself poor and I’m certainly not white and I’m not rich. But, going to school I realized I was really a Republican and really had been since I was 10. I became active and visible in the GOP after that.”
Morgan believes that his party does have the interest of African-Americans and all citizens in mind. He said Trump brought illegal immigration to the forefront of politics when other candidates hid from the issue.
“We’re in a different age and people want someone who relates to them and will do something about the problems,” Morgan said. “Trump has worked both sides of the aisle and he sees that too many benefit from a bureaucratic standpoint and that too many in politics want the status quo. Right now, Donald Trump’s priority is to make America great again.”
Trump’s perceived rhetoric doesn’t bother Morgan, who said most of the New York businessman’s words are taken out of context.
“We look at what he’s saying, not how he’s saying it,” he said. “What people have to realize is that Donald Trump isn’t a professional politician and that has been his appeal. He speaks his mind and tells it like it is.
“Everyone else has been in a position to do something but haven’t,” Morgan said. “People talk about hope and change, but that’s all they do. We finally have a fresh voice with a fresh perspective and someone who has worked the system and who knows how to work the system to benefit America and that’s Donald Trump.”