By Nathan Layne
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will speak on Saturday to an influential group of conservative Christian activists who advocate for restricting abortion, before heading to Philadelphia for a rally aimed at courting Black voters.
The former president is scheduled to give the keynote speech at an event organized by the Faith & Freedom Coalition, a group overseen by longtime Trump ally Ralph Reed, at 1:30 p.m. ET (1730 GMT) in Washington.
The gathering will highlight issues important to conservative Christian voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election, and participants will likely be eager to hear more about Trump’s stance on abortion.
Trump has tried to carve out a political middle ground on the subject, which has become a liability for Republicans in recent elections.
He has claimed credit for appointing three right-wing justices to the Supreme Court who helped overturn the Roe v. Wade decision two years ago this Monday, eliminating a nationwide right to abortion in a moment of triumph for conservatives.
Trump has more recently said he would not support a federal ban on abortion, however, preferring to leave the issue to individual states.
That stance does not sit well with many evangelical voters, an important voting bloc for Trump. Reed has said his group would continue to work towards restrictions at both the state and federal levels.
Later on Saturday, Trump will hold a campaign rally in a historically Black area of Philadelphia, long a stronghold for Democrats.
The Trump campaign has made courting Black and Hispanic voters, who make up more than half of Philadelphia’s population, a priority this cycle, encouraged by some opinion polls that indicate he made be gaining ground with these voters.
While Trump has little chance of winning the city — President Joe Biden, a Democrat, won 81.4% of the votes in Philadelphia County in 2020 — Trump could still boost his chances by narrowing the margin in Philadelphia and surrounding counties so critical to the overall tally in Pennsylvania, a battleground state.
Trump’s campaign said he will use his Philadelphia speech to talk about Biden’s handling of inflation, the southern border and crime, all key tenets of the Republican’s campaign for a second term.
William Rosenberg, a political science professor at Drexel University, said he believed Trump’s main goal was projecting his outreach to Black voters nationally, similar to the rally he held in the Bronx borough of New York City last month.
“It’s a play to get on national TV to say you are in Philadelphia to make the case that this is a Black community,” Rosenberg said. “Then perhaps you convince some swing voters that Donald Trump is not so bad.”
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Philadelphia; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Alistair Bell)
