MANCHESTER, N.H. — Republican Donald Trump is courting minority voters as rival Hillary Clinton prepares to deliver a speech that will accuse his campaign of fostering hate.
Trump met Thursday with members of a new Republican Party initiative meant to train young — and largely minority — volunteers to drive up voter turnout among their peers.
His poll numbers falling behind Hillary Clinton’s with less than three months until Election Day, Trump has been working to win over blacks and Latinos in an effort to broaden his appeal. At rallies over the past week, the Republican presidential nominee cast Democratic policies as harmful to minority communities and urged them to give him a chance, despite his occasional use of inflammatory rhetoric.
“I’ve always had great relationships with the African-American community,” Trump told the group, which included his former rival Ben Carson and South Carolina Pastor Mark Burns.
A day after labeling Clinton “a bigot” at a Mississippi rally, Trump continued making the case that Democrats have taken their minority support for granted.
“They’ve been very disrespectful, as far as I’m concerned, to the African-American population in this country,” Trump said. He was joined in Mississippi by Nigel Farage, one of the architects of Britain’s push to leave the European Union — a movement that succeeded, in part, because voters sought to block the influx of foreigners into the United Kingdom.
Many African-American leaders and voters have dismissed Trump’s message — delivered to predominantly white rally audiences — as condescending and intended more to reassure undecided white voters that he’s not racist, than to actually help minority communities.
In his speeches, Trump has painted a dismal picture of life for black Americans, describing war zones as “safer than living in some of our inner cities” and suggesting that African-Americans and Hispanics can’t walk down streets without getting shot.
The latest census data show that 26 percent of blacks live in poverty, versus 15 percent of the country overall.
But Trump insisted Thursday that his message had already “had a tremendous impact” on the polls.
“People are hearing the message,” he said.
Trump also said that he’ll give an immigration speech “over the next week or two” to clarify his wavering stance on the issue. During the Republican primary, Trump had promised to deport the estimated 11 million people living in the United States illegally. In recent days, he’s suggested he might be open to allowing them to stay.
Before the meeting, several protesters unfurled a banner over a railing in the lobby of Trump Tower that read, “Trump = Always Racist.” They were quickly escorted out by security as they railed against Trump for “trying to pander to black and Latino leaders.” ”Nothing will change,” they yelled.
Later Thursday, Clinton will deliver a speech in Reno, Nevada focused on attaching Trump to the so-called “alt-right” movement, which is often associated with efforts on the far right to preserve “white identity,” oppose multiculturalism and defend “Western values.” His new campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon, was the executive chairman of the conservative Breitbart News site, which is a favorite of alt-right supporters.
Clinton said Wednesday in a CNN interview that Trump “is taking a hate movement mainstream. He’s brought it into his campaign.”
Her campaign also released an online video that compiles footage of prominent white supremacist leaders praising Trump, who has been criticized for failing to immediately denounce the support that he’s garnered from white nationalists and supremacist, including former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.
Trump responded with a statement from one of his most prominent black supporters, South Carolina Pastor Mark Burns, who called the video “a disgusting new low.”
“This type of rhetoric and repulsive advertising is revolting and completely beyond the pale. I call on Hillary Clinton to disavow this video and her campaign for this sickening act that has no place in our world,” he said.
Trump’s campaign says the Republican nominee has never used the term “alt-right” and disavows “any groups or individuals associated with a message of hate.”
