Georgia Republicans appeal to Black voters on statewide bus tour

With less than three weeks to go before the general election, U.S. Sen. David Perdue and his famous first-cousin hit the road Thursday with an appeal to Black voters.

After stops in Gainesville, Cherokee and Paulding County, Perdue and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue swung by the Black Voices for Trump office in Mableton.

Polls show Trump getting trounced among Black voters, the cornerstone of the state Democratic party. But that hardly seemed to matter to the 25 or so Black supporters gathered in the parking lot of a tony shopping center on a grassy knoll about 50 yards away from the office.

(On the sidewalk directly in front of the office, another crowd of about 25 people – most of whom were Black – stood patiently in line: The Slutty Vegan food truck was there.)

“I feel momentum,” David Perdue told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution before addressing voters. “I have been all over Georgia in the last few weeks and there is a Trump bump out here that the polls just don’t pick up. It was there in ’16, it is here now. There is a growing energy out here.”

This recent bus tour comes a day after a Quinnipiac University showed Democrats with sharp gains - and Perdue trailing Democrat Jon Ossoff.

“I don’t pay any attention to polls,” said David Perdue, pointing to previous years when Republicans trailed in polling only to easily prevail on Election Day. “They had me wrong, they had [Sonny Perdue] wrong they had Trump wrong. I don’t pay attention to that.”

Outside of the bus, they met an eager crowd singing the civil rights standard, “This Little Light of Mine.”

Amanda McGee, 37, showed up with her 8-year-old son, Gabriel.

McGee has been all over the state campaigning for Trump and plans to be in Macon on Friday when the president arrives.

“I want a future for myself and my son,” said the single mother.

Credit: Ernie Suggs

Credit: Ernie Suggs

Sonny Perdue told the crowd that if Trump is not elected more racial unrest will spread.

“If you elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and hand this over to the Democrats again, America is gonna be like that. Not just Portland or Minneapolis or Kenosha,” Sonny Perdue said. “It’s gonna be Atlanta, Georgia. It is gonna be all over this country. So, I want to thank you for having the courage to stand up and not be a token of the Democratic Party.”

And like his first-cousin, Sonny Perdue scoffed at the polls. He noted that he got under 10% of the Black vote when he ran for governor in 2002, but that number rose to about 20% when he was re-elected four years later.

“Black people are not stupid. They understand what this administration means," said Perdue. "They understand what a job is, a better job is. And they know that they have been played like clowns for years by the Democratic party and they tired of it.”