I’m Not Sure a Black Republican Can Win the Presidency’: Elections Expert Sean Trende Suggests ‘Racial Resentment’ Too High Among GOP Voters
RealClearPolitics senior elections analyst Sean Trende cast doubt on Senator Tim Scott’s (R-SC) nascent presidential campaign and the political prospects of Black Republicans more generally in a since-deleted tweet.
“A third rail I’ll go ahead and touch:
I’m not sure a Black Republican can win the presidency because I think they’ll shed too many Republicans with high racial resentment levels without getting much in return,” offered Trende.
“I’m less certain of this than I was a decade ago, because I think there are more suburban Whites who tend to vote Democratic today who might be tempted to switch to Scott, but we’ve seen this with candidates like Mia Love and probably some of the statewide Republican flops,” he continued.
Scott has emphasized his family’s history as slaves in the pre-Civil War era and farmers in the Jim Crow South.
“Today, I think back to my grandfather. A man born in 1921 in Salley, South Carolina; in the Deep South,” said Scott while announcing his candidacy on Monday. “By the time he was in the third grade, his education was over. He was forced out of school and had to start picking cotton. But he lived long enough to watch his grandson pick out a seat in Congress. That’s the evolution of the country we live in. My family went from cotton to Congress in his lifetime. And it was possible because my grandfather had stubborn faith.”
“This Black man who struggled through the Jim Crow South believed then what some doubt now: In the goodness of America,” he added.
In 2022 Scott won reelection by a margin of 25.9% and is one of only three African Americans presently serving in the upper chamber of Congress. Black Republicans were nominated to run as the GOP’s candidate in 31 federal races last year. Only five, including Scott, prevailed, but that nevertheless marked a 145-year high.
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