Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is leaning on Christian leaders to build trust with Black voters in the Detroit area.
Roughly a dozen Black faith leaders, some who identified themselves as former Democratic converts and others less comfortable with party labels, gathered at Greektown’s Table No. 2 restaurant Thursday to talk about their place in the Republican Party. Pastors expressed alignment on politics that speak to Biblical values instead of racial issues, a rejection of LGBTQ education in schools and strong opposition to abortion.
The outreach event featured outspoken Republicans like Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, who hosted Trump at 180 Church in June. It also illustrated how some Black voters are reevaluating their relationship to the Democratic Party.
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Andre Faulkner, pastor of the Balm Deliverance Movement, said he’s an undecided voter who never considered supporting Republicans until Thursday. Faulkner is a former felon who started a Bible study while serving time in prison. Multiple attendees were sympathetic to Trump’s criminal convictions and perceived character flaws.
“When I look in the mirror, I see what I see and we vote Democrat; it’s inherent,” Faulkner said. “If we’re going to say ‘Trump is a felon,’ well, I’m partial to that because I’m a felon.”
Sewell describes himself as a former drug dealer who had a religious transformation after being baptized by Bishop Andrew Merritt of Straight Gate International Church. Sewell characterized Trump as a flawed person called to carry out God’s will in the tradition of imperfect men like King David.
“If a believer says ‘(Trump) is bad, he’s a felon, he’s a womanizer,’ the Bible says ‘he who has not sinned, let them cast the first stone,’” Sewell said. “That’s the beautiful part of Christianity. We can come as we are. We can come as sinners. Many believers are allowing their hypocrisy to blind them from the best choice.”
The Harris-Walz campaign has kept a focus on mobilizing Black Detroit voters throughout the year. Vice President Kamala Harris has said she’s working to earn the vote of Black Americans, “not assuming I’m going to have it because I am Black.”
The Harris campaign has organized multiple voter engagement events in Detroit and held an August campaign rally attended by thousands at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Trump visited Huntington Place in downtown Detroit to speak at a National Guard ceremony last month and a Republican convention in June. He returns to Michigan on Friday for events in West Michigan and Macomb County.
Jonathan Kinloch, Michigan Democratic Party Chair of the 13th Congressional District, said Trump’s attempt to win over Black voters is insincere.
“Trump has 50 years of showing who he is and what he stands for. He has consistently misrepresented the interests of Black people,” Kinloch said. “Just because you have a few individuals who carry a Bible and happen to be Black doesn’t mean they speak for Black people, especially when they speak for a platform that has attempted to throw out votes in Wayne County.”
Jasmine Harris, director of Black media for the Harris-Walz campaign, said the vice president is not taking Black voters for granted.
“Donald Trump and JD Vance are running a campaign built on divisive rhetoric and lies rooted in the age-old tropes that threaten to take America back to some of the darkest times in our nation’s history,” she said in a statement.
Trump picked up only 5% of Detroit’s vote in 2020, but that was more than the 3% he earned four years earlier when he became president. Supporters expect Trump to secure a larger share of Detroit’s vote in November, peeling off enough Black voters to stop Harris from winning Michigan.
Repealing abortion rights was a major theme of Thursday’s event. Linda Lee Tarver, a Black Republican activist from Lansing, called abortion a “genocide of Black people.” Sewell called the Democratic Party “demonic” for supporting abortion access.
The Rev. Apostle Ellis Smith, founder of Jubilee City Church in Redford Township, said “ideology of reproductive rights is diabolical in nature” and “the devil” is influencing transgender inclusion in society. Smith also opposed same-sex marriage.
“My political framework emanates from the scripture, not being a Black man in America,” Smith said. “I don’t want little boys who think they’re girls going into the bathroom with my grandchildren. We’re not going to have it.”
The Trump campaign initially confused Smith with vocal Democratic Bishop Charles H. Ellis III in a press announcement. Smith said he’s voted for Republicans since former President Ronald Reagan “radically changed” his politics.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers said abortion policies should be left up to each state to decide, but supports exceptions that allow abortion in cases of rape, incest or when necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. Rogers previously said he would have voted against legalizing abortion care in Michigan.
While serving in Congress, Rogers supported a national abortion ban beginning at 20 weeks of pregnancy that included exceptions.
Rogers echoed sentiment expressed by Sewell and others that Democratic officials have not been good stewards of communities that have long supported the Democratic Party.
“I’m not asking you to be a Republican,” Rogers said. “I am asking you to take a chance on a set of ideas that will help this community, that will help us all grow.”
Sewell lamented the condition of neighborhoods that have struggled under Democratic leadership. Sewell, who now lives in Harper Woods, said his congregation is largely Democratic but he’s working on it.
“I’m in the conversion business,” Sewell said. “Last night, I asked the question: How can you be a Bible believing, tongue-talking, water waking, spirit-filled baptized Christian, yet you believe in a demonic Democratic Party? You can’t.”
Pastor Brent Hale, of Lansing’s Kingdom Life Church, said he was an Obama supporter who sees Trump as “God’s choice” for president.
“I know people don’t like to hear that, because they don’t want God in the public square,” Hale said. “I want to bring him back. I vote my biblical values.”
Alexandria Taylor, a Romulus Republican, said she left the Democratic Party “plantation” in 2019. She previously ran for a nonpartisan seat on the Michigan Supreme Court, mounted a short-lived campaign for U.S. Senate as a Republican and represented former Michigan GOP Chair Kristina Karamo in a lawsuit challenging the validity of Detroit absentee ballots.
Kinloch said Taylor’s characterization of the Democratic Party as a “plantation” is irresponsible.
“It continues to show, everybody who is Black does not represent the interests and struggles that Black Americans have experienced in this country,” Kinloch said. “People like Alexandria have spent an eye-blink in the 13th Congressional District. She joined, ran, lost and left. Her experience with the Democratic Party was none. She is the least of individuals who has any credibility with Black involvement in the Democratic Party.”
Malachi! Thank you for always writing a fair and balanced story.
Trump is a felon, a womanizer, and a sinner. You say you are too, and that you are OK with that. Trump is also a fraud. What do you say about that?
I’m still not sure how pastor’s forgive trumps sins but decry those who need an abortion. Didn’t Jesus die for all sins? How can Pastors who are supposed to show love support someone who does nothing but spew hate. I’m a born again tongue taking Christian. I pray for Trump but I will not vote for him!!