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Clinton campaign works through black media, churches, elected officials to rally Tampa Bay voters

 
“Souls to the polls” drives, such as this one from 2012, are planned in Tampa and throughout Florida to help drive black voter turnout ahead of the Nov. 8 election. In this photo, state Sen. Arthenia L. Joyner, D-Tampa, helps explain the ballot to John Homidas. Voters were bused from their Sunday church services to early voting sites. [EVE EDELHEIT | Times (2012)]
“Souls to the polls” drives, such as this one from 2012, are planned in Tampa and throughout Florida to help drive black voter turnout ahead of the Nov. 8 election. In this photo, state Sen. Arthenia L. Joyner, D-Tampa, helps explain the ballot to John Homidas. Voters were bused from their Sunday church services to early voting sites. [EVE EDELHEIT | Times (2012)]
Published Oct. 22, 2016

TAMPA — Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called radio station 95.7 The Beat on Friday to talk early voting, debt-free college, Black Lives Matter and President Barack Obama's legacy.

"Florida is always important," Clinton told DJ Anjali "Queen B" McGuire. "This election is too important for anyone to sit on the sidelines. … This choice that everybody's going to have to make is whether we continue to move forward and build on President Obama's legacy or whether we turn back the clock."

And Clinton was hardly the only noteworthy caller that WBTP-FM, the Tampa Bay hip hop and R&B station, had this week. Wednesday, it was Obama on the line, saying, "I need everybody in the Tampa Bay area to vote."

The calls are part of a big, busy and persistent effort by Clinton's campaign and like-minded groups to energize black voter turnout on or before Nov. 8.

"Hillary's campaign is contacting me daily," Tampa City Council member Frank Reddick said this week. "I received two calls from them while I was in the council meeting today."

In Pinellas County, Commissioner Ken Welch is getting similar treatment.

"The campaign's definitely building momentum," he said. "We speak often. It seems like every day and night."

Clinton's campaign also has been spending a lot of money, said Hillsborough County NAACP Branch president Bennie Small, hiring canvassers to work on voter registration and outreach.

In 2008 and 2012, black turnout was more of a given because Obama was at the top of the ticket. In each of those elections, he won more than 90 percent of the black vote.

"There's a strong push for African-Americans in terms of getting out the vote, because the president himself is not on the ballot, so that's a concern — that they may not have the groundswell of support," said Tom Scott, the senior pastor at the 34th Street Church of God and former chairman of the Tampa City Council and the Hillsborough County Commission.

"We've been encouraging people to even turn out more because you have more at risk and at stake. For instance, the legacy of the president is a huge issue why we need to get out the vote."

On Friday, a statewide coalition of faith-based groups announced plans for 15 "souls to the polls" weekend events in 12 Florida cities. That comes on top of voter outreach since July through churches, barbershops, beauty salons and black fraternities and sororities, said Phillip Thompson, state director at For Florida's Future, a pro-Clinton super PAC.

In Tampa, the Tampa Bay Coalition of Clergy, a group of about 30 pastors from African-American churches, plans its own souls to the polls push for the weekend before the election at the C. Blythe Andrews and West Tampa libraries.

State Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, a veteran of such drives, said the work toggles between contacting older constituents — Do you need a ride to the polls? Help ordering a ballot? — and talking with younger voters, sometimes at roundtables and phone banks focused on reaching millennials.

"It's going to be adrenaline from now until Nov. 8," Joyner said.

The campaign also is bringing in high-profile Clinton surrogates. Former President Bill Clinton met with two or three dozen black pastors. U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, a black Democrat from northern California, sat down for soul food with local Democrats at the Open Cafe in Tampa and opened a Clinton campaign office in St. Petersburg. Celebrity attorney and author Star Jones came for campaign events on both sides of the bay.

Early outreach is critical. In 2012, more Hillsborough residents voted before Election Day than on it.

And last month, some local Clinton supporters told the Tampa Bay Times the campaign seemed to be struggling to hit its goals for voter registration and mobilization. But Welch said the ground game picked up through the end of September and has continued to accelerate.

"I think the message is getting out that we cannot afford to lose momentum, and I think that message is reaching the black community more effectively than in prior months," he said.

So far, 9 percent of Hillsborough voters have voted by mail, which Democrats tend to embrace less than voting early in person. Still, turnout through absentee ballots alone already is higher than the county average in several voting precincts with sizable minority populations: No. 249, which includes the Encore Tampa affordable housing complex and the western edge of Ybor City, and Nos. 560 and 561, which lie north and south of Fletcher Avenue and west of the University of South Florida.

By comparison, turnout in Hillsborough's highest vote-by-mail precincts — think Sun City Center — are already near or more than 25 percent.

Another factor that black elected officials say is working in Clinton's favor is GOP nominee Donald Trump. They say Trump's portrayal of black America and inner cities as poverty-stricken war zones, and of black voters as people with nothing to lose betrays an ignorance of the lives black voters actually lead, the neighborhoods they live in, the businesses many of them own and the concerns they have.

"The more Donald Trump opens his mouth, the more people get motivated for Hillary in the black community," Reddick said.

Trump, however, is working to get his message in front of black voters, too. On Friday, if you went to the website of 95.7 The Beat and clicked on the link to hear Obama's phone call, you had to listen to a Trump ad first.

Times Washington Bureau Chief Alex Leary contributed to this report.