ATLANTA — With less than 100 days until the November 5 presidential election, both candidates of the two major parties are making their pitches to Black voters.
Former President Donald Trump spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago on Wednesday. He was part of a panel addressing common issues facing the Black community. Mr. Trump tried to appeal to Black voters by stoking concerns over immigration.
"They're taking employment away from Black people," Trump said. "They're coming in and they're invading. It's an invasion of millions of people. These people are coming into our country, and they’re taking Black jobs and Hispanic jobs and, frankly, union jobs."
The former president spoke to his record in office, noting his support of opportunity zones to increase black entrepreneurship, lowering unemployment pre-pandemic and financing historically black colleges and universities. Mr. Trump pledged to combat inflation if elected.
"I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln," Trump said. "Young Black people, they don't have the American Dream anymore. They don't have a house. They can't borrow the money because the cost of the money. They can't buy it because of the cost of housing. We have to bring down the cost of energy, and that’s going to bring down the cost of inflation.”
On Tuesday, chants greeted Vice President Kamala Harris during a rally inside Georgia State University's Convocation Center. Mr. Trump will hold a rally at the same location Saturday. While the likely Democratic presidential nominee did not specifically mention the Black community in her address, much of her audience Tuesday was Black and her Atlanta support among Black voters is strong. Harris spoke to a lot of the issues facing minorities and the middle class as a whole.
"Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency," Harris said. "We are witnessing a full-on assault on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights. The freedom to vote, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to live without fear of bigotry and hate."
Harris promised to sign voting rights laws, fight corporate price gouging and cap high rent hikes. She said she would work to strengthen gun laws across the country and restore reproductive rights tightened by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision.
"I don’t have to tell folks in Atlanta that generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom, and now the baton is in our hands," Harris said. "We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity to build a business, own a home, to build intergenerational wealth.”