Hillary Clinton Takes Black Votes For Granted? WikiLeaks Emails Show Campaign Debate On African-American Voters

The latest batch of emails uploaded Wednesday by WikiLeaks and linked to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta exposed internal discussions about whether the Democratic presidential nominee was doing enough to appeal to black voters.

In an email exchange last February between Podesta and Frank White Jr., an elected official for the DNC who raised $ 2.3 million for Barack Obama during his 2012 re-election campaign according to the New York Times, Podesta wrote, “I am hearing the same complaint in political circles that I continue to hear while fundraising. ‘The campaign does not value black folks and takes us for granted’.”

White Jr. replied in an email, “the black (vote) is obvious super critical” under the subject line, “re: the black vote” and then proceeded to write, “a black campaign vice chair or Senior advisor would go a long way during the primary and send the message that, Hillary puts her actions where her mouth is, and actually does appreciate the black vote.”

The timing of the February email exchange may have resulted from Clinton’s struggles among black voters against primary rival Bernie Sanders. It came two weeks after the New Hampshire Primary, which the Vermont senator decidedly won with 60.4 percent of the vote, and edged Clinton among non-white voters, CNN reported. These results came while Sanders, who is from a state that is 95 percent white, pushed hard to build partnerships and relationships with prominent black activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and rapper Michael Render, better known by his stage name, Killer Mike.

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has promised to release documents every week until Election Day in hopes of harming Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency. In a June 12 interview, Assange told British television host, Robert Peston of the ITV network, that he not only opposed Clinton’s candidacy due to issues with her policy, but that he also saw her as a personal foe. He accused Clinton of wanting to indict him after WikiLeaks provided 250,000 military documents to multiple news outlets in July 2013.

The latest batch of WikiLeaks also brought to light topics including how the campaign planned to defeat Sanders and strategize for the sexual assault allegations against Bill Clinton, Politico reported.

Clinton maintained 85 percent support from black likely voters against Republican Trump, who had the support from just 4 percent of African-Americans with 13 days until the election, according to the most recent CBS News poll released last week.