Trump is racist, says majority of American voters

When broken down by race, 46% of white voters think Donald Trump is racist, as compared to 50% who say he is not and four percent who were undecided.

By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN
US President Donald Trump and U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings (photo credit: REUTERS)
US President Donald Trump and U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings
(photo credit: REUTERS)
More than half (51%) of US voters think that US President Donald Trump is racist, according to a poll by Quinnipiac University released earlier this week.
When broken down by race, 46% of white voters think that Trump is racist, as compared with 50% who say he is not and 4% who were undecided. Some 80% of black voters and 55% of Hispanic voters say he is racist.
A Pew Research survey – examining the likely makeup of the electorate in the 2020 US presidential election – found that non-whites will account for a third of eligible voters.
When breaking down the racist question by religion, there was an even greater divide.
“Only 21% of white Evangelicals believe the president is racist,” said Quinnipiac University polling analyst Mary Snow. “Compare that to 63% of voters who don’t affiliate with any organized religion.”
During Tuesday and Wednesday’s Democratic Party debates, presidential hopefuls united in accusing Trump of racism. They specifically called out his recent repeated attacks on the majority-black city of Baltimore.
“He is using the tired old language of demagogues, of fearmongers, of racists,” said New Jersey's Democratic senator Cory Booker.
Last week, Trump called Baltimore a “rat and rodent-infested mess” and the “worst in the USA,” while vehemently attacking Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings and his black-majority Maryland district. Some 32,000 Jews live in Cummings’ Baltimore district.
Last month, Trump engaged in a Twitter feud with Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, in which he told the minority congresswomen that “If you are not happy, you can leave. If you hate our country, you can leave. Some people thought it’s controversial; many people love it.”
He said that Omar “left Somalia, a failed country,” and added that “she hates Israel, hates Jews.”
Another striking statistic revealed in the private poll was that American voters are concerned with election interference. Some 71% of American voters are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” that a foreign government may try to interfere in the 2020 elections. Furthermore, 59% of voters think Congress should pass additional laws to protect the 2020 US election from foreign interference.
In Israel, likewise, foreign interference remains a concern ahead of the September 17 election. Supreme Court Judge Hanan Melczer told media leaders in a recent briefing that the Central Elections Committee has taken several steps to prevent such interference from occurring.