Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is accelerating his outreach to black voters with tailored grassroots events and advertising dedicated to engaging this crucial bloc on Friday.
One day before President Trump was to rally in person with thousands of supporters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Biden campaign was holding virtual gatherings with black voters across 10 battleground states in which their participation is critical: Colorado, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The former vice president also unveiled a well-funded advertising campaign in black media outlets that includes a week of full-page ads in the Oklahoma Eagle, a black-owned newspaper in Tulsa.
“Vice President Biden and our campaign will be honoring Juneteenth through community action because we know that the best way to defeat Donald Trump is by coming together and doing the work to restore the soul of our nation,” Biden campaign coalitions director Ashley Allison said Friday in a statement emailed to the Washington Examiner.
The effort is planned as a lead-up to Trump’s Saturday rally, a counterprogramming of sorts that will include “fact-checking” the president’s remarks as they occur by the Democratic National Committee.
The Biden campaign is coordinating the effort with the Democratic National Committee and the national party’s Oklahoma affiliate. It is part of a three-pronged effort to commemorate Juneteenth, undercut Trump’s multimillion-dollar campaign to court black voters, and turn Trump’s rally into a political liability. The president is gathering for a major live event for the first time since early March, when the coronavirus froze in-person political gatherings.
Trump is using the rally to relaunch a reelection bid that has stalled amid a pandemic, economic decline, and civil unrest.
“Big crowds and lines already forming in Tulsa. My campaign hasn’t started yet. It starts on Saturday night in Oklahoma!” Trump tweeted Friday.
The Trump rally in Tulsa was originally scheduled for Friday. But the event was pushed back one day out of respect for Juneteenth, which marks Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger’s announcement about the end of slavery in Texas and is observed annually on June 19. The commemoration has accumulated extra significance after George Floyd, a black man, died in May after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
ABC News first reported the news about the Democratic Party’s strategy to counterprogram Trump’s rally.
