For the majority of people of color who believe Donald Trump is a racist unworthy of reelection, the Republican president can point to Alice Marie Johnson.
The 64-year-old African American great-grandmother spent 21 years in prison for a nonviolent drug offense before Trump commuted her sentence in 2018. She then became the unwitting star of his reelection campaign’s $10-million Super Bowl ad, which featured footage of Johnson’s emotional release from prison as she praised “Donald John Trump.”
“I’m an African American woman and he signed my paper. How could I turn around and say he’s a racist?” Johnson said in an interview this past week. “I believe in judging people by the things that they’ve done.”
As the next phase of the 2020 presidential campaign begins, Trump’s team is betting that his actions, more than his words, on issues such as criminal justice, education and abortion will allow him to chip away at the Democrats’ overwhelming advantage with African Americans, Latinos and women.
The high-stakes effort is backed by tens of millions of dollars, an expansive field program and a sophisticated digital operation aimed at peeling away even a narrow slice of the voters who make up the backbone of the Democratic Party’s political base.