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Trump's 2016 Campaign 'Targeted 3.5m Black People To Deter Them From Voting'

President Donald Trump holds a news briefing at the White House.
President Donald Trump holds a news briefing at the White House.

Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign attempted to discourage millions of Black Americans from voting in 2016 in a move that could have been crucial to his victory, it has been claimed.

According to an investigation by Channel 4 News, the so-called “Deterrence” project run by Trump’s digital campaign team targeted 3.5 million Black people with adverts in an attempt to get them to stay at home on election day.

Almost 200 million people in 16 key battleground states were separated by an algorithm into “audiences”, so they could then be targeted with tailored ads on Facebook and other platforms, the British broadcaster says.

Reliable voters that supported each candidate were categorised as “Core Trump” and “Core Clinton”.

Less reliable voters were marked as “GOTV”, meaning get out to vote if they were leaning towards Trump, “Persuasion” if they were swing voters, and “Deterrence” if they were likely to support Hilary Clinton.

Analysis by Channel 4 News shows Black Americans were disproportionately marked “Deterrence” by the 2016 campaign – they made up just 13% of the voters that were identified in the database, but 29% of the “Deterrence” group.

In Georgia, despite Black people constituting 32% of the population, they made up 61% of the “Deterrence” category, Channel 4 News reports.

In North Carolina, Black people are 22% of the population but were 46% of the “Deterrence” group.

An analysis of data from the key state of Wisconsin, where in 2016 turnout among Black voters collapsed, just 5.4% of the population are Black voters – but the group represented 17% of the “Deterrence”...

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