Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign event at 180 Church, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Detroit.
Roughly 24 hours before Trump planned to address the conference, meanwhile, well-known white supremacist Nick Fuentes entered Turning Point’s convention hall surrounded by a group of cheering supporters. He was quickly escorted out by security. Few states may matter more in November than Michigan, which Biden carried by less than 3 percentage points four years ago. And few voting groups matter more to Democrats than African Americans, who made up the backbone of Biden’s political base in 2020. But now, less than five months before Election Day, Black voters are expressing modest signs of disappointment with the 81-year-old Democrat.
Kimberly Taylor, who was invited on stage at the church by the Trump campaign, thanked Trump for “coming to the hood,” while pastor Lorenzo Sewell said Biden attended an NAACP dinner in the city “but never came to the hood.” The false notion that Biden benefited from widespread voter fraud has been widely debunked by voting officials in both parties, the court system and members of Trump’s former administration. Still, Trump continues to promote such misinformation, which echoed throughout the conservative convention over the weekend.
Elsewhere, thousands of conservative activists, most of them young and white, were eagerly awaiting Trump’s keynote address Saturday night.