GOP Intensifies Its Effort to Appeal to Black Voters

William P. Lucas looked out at the 150 men and women breakfasting on scrambled eggs and campaign politics in this affluent Detroit suburb, and proclaimed the obvious.

“Here I am a Republican and a black and running for governor,” the 58-year-old Wayne County executive and former FBI agent said. “I represent a whole new equation.”

The GOP is counting on a record number of similar equations this November. At least 86 black Republicans are running in local and state elections around the country. The group is the largest in the party’s history, and includes eight congressional candidates, twice as many as in 1982.

But, party officials say, the black Republicans are merely the most visible part of a growing GOP effort to woo some of America’s 12.2 million black voters back to the party of Abraham Lincoln. An increasing number of white Republican candidates are courting black leaders and campaigning in black neighborhoods, trying to chip away at black Democratic support in such states as South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia and New York.

“I think it’s a new day,” said Larry Dillard, who is working with Lucas’ campaign as black political liaison for the Republican National Committee. “It’s not just the Republican Party sending out a message. It’s that blacks are starting to listen to that message.”

How blacks are responding is another question. After President Reagan showed up on Sept. 24 to campaign for Lucas at Detroit’s Cobo Hall arena, one poll found 39% of voters less likely to vote for Lucas than before. A Detroit News poll published Thursday showed Lucas losing a majority of the black vote and trailing more than 2 to 1 to Michigan’s popular Democratic incumbent, James J. Blanchard.

“Their loyalty continues unabated,” Lucas, a former Democrat himself, said of black voters in an interview. “They treat the Democratic Party as a religion. And making changes is very difficult for them.”

Democratic officials and black leaders agree. Although they acknowledge fractious party disputes over alleged snubs of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the black civil rights leader who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, they foresee no shift of black support away from Democrats in the near future despite increased GOP competition.

“I think it’s wishful thinking by Republicans,” said Althea T. L. Simmons, Washington director and chief lobbyist for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. “Sure, there’s disaffection. But it’s like a family. You don’t get up and pull up stakes.”

No Party Realignment

Subtle shifts may be under way, however. A national Gallup survey of 868 blacks and 916 whites conducted for the Joint Center for Political Studies, a Washington-based black-oriented think tank, found “virtually no evidence of party realignment among blacks,” but a weakening in party loyalty among black Democrats, according to Linda F. Williams, senior political analyst at the center.

The poll found only 6.5% of blacks identifying themselves as Republicans, contrasted with 78% who called themselves Democrats. But the poll found “softening” of Democratic support, because 49% of blacks identified themselves as “strong Democrats,” down from 55% in 1984.

“While blacks are still voting Democratic, this is the clearest evidence we have that the Democratic Party might indeed be losing its grip on the core of its black support,” said Eddie N. Williams, president of the center, at an Oct. 14 press conference announcing the poll.

Young black voters, like young white voters, appear more receptive to Republican appeals than their elders, said David Garth, a New York political consultant. “There is also a growing black middle class that may not be Republican, but may be more conservative than the traditional black vote,” he said.

Reagan Widely Criticized

Many expect black support for the 1988 Republican presidential nominee to increase. President Reagan drew only about 10% of black votes in the 1984 election, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls, and he is widely criticized by blacks for his record on civil rights and affirmative action, his sharp cuts in social programs, his appointments of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Daniel A. Manion, and his opposition to economic sanctions for South Africa.

“I don’t think the black vote against the Republicans will ever be as great as it was against Reagan,” said Roger Wilkins, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank in Washington, “because he was seen as so against black interests.”

A shift toward the GOP candidate in 1988 would have precedent. A majority of blacks voted Republican until 1936. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won 39% of the black vote in 1956, and Richard M. Nixon drew 32% in 1960. The only black senator in this century, Edward M. Brooke of Massachusetts, was a Republican. Other liberal Republicans, from Sen. Charles McC. Mathias Jr. of Maryland to Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. of Connecticut, routinely draw more than one-fourth of the black vote.

Bedrock GOP Issues

New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, a Republican who won reelection last November with 60% of the state’s black vote, has argued in speeches around the country that Republicans can win black support if they are credible on civil rights, actively seek black votes, and focus on “bedrock Republican issues” of jobs, crime and education.

“This is a community that has given 90% of its vote to one party and what have they gotten in exchange?” Kean said in an interview while flying west to campaign for Lucas. “How many black senators are there? How many black congressmen are there? How many black state party chairmen, how many black county chairmen are there?

“You have one party that says there’s nothing they can do to get the black vote, so they ignore them,” Kean added. “And the other party says there’s nothing they can do to lose the black vote, so they take them for granted. So the black agenda doesn’t advance.”

Republicans admit that the GOP clearly has an image problem. The 162-member Republican National Committee has only two black members. Only 3% of the delegates to the 1984 Republican convention were black. And an eight-member minorities committee set up at the convention to increase minority participation still has no black members.

‘Ballot Integrity Program’

“It took the Democrats 100 years to get over the Civil War,” said Roger Stone, a Virginia-based consultant to Republican candidates. “It’s going to take the Republican Party a long time to get over some of the baggage associated with our party.”

Democrats say the baggage includes the Republican National Committee’s recent so-called “ballot integrity program” to investigate alleged voter fraud in selected districts in Louisiana, Indiana and Missouri.

Under the program, Republican officials mailed letters to registered voters in areas that gave Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale at least 75% of the vote in the 1984 election--a voting pattern confined almost exclusively to black precincts.

If letters were returned as undeliverable, as 31,000 were in Louisiana this fall, registrars were asked to check further to determine whether the voters’ names should be taken off the rolls.

Purging of Names Blocked

But a Louisiana state judge ruled that the program was singling out blacks, and issued a preliminary injunction last month preventing registrars from purging voters’ names. And--after Democrats filed a $10-million lawsuit, charging that the program was an attempt to “harass, intimidate and improperly challenge” blacks--lawyers for the Republican National Committee agreed Monday in federal court in Newark, N.J., to stop the mailings and not to challenge voters at the polls.

“This clearly shows the hypocrisy of their alleged efforts to reach out to black and minority voters,” said Terry Michael, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. “It wasn’t an effort to go after ghost voters. It was clearly an effort to hold down black votes.”

William Greener III, deputy chief of staff for political operations for the Republican National Committee, angrily denies those charges, saying the program was a legitimate effort to ferret out voter fraud.

“I’m really righteously indignant about this,” Greener said. “Voter fraud is the Democrats’ dirty little secret. . . . Republicans are trying to register young voters, and Democrats are trying to keep dead voters on the rolls.”

Party Prospects Hurt

Whatever the intent, analysts say the Republican effort has hurt party prospects in Louisiana, where blacks make up 27% of the electorate and have a 75% registration rate. In a tight race against Democratic Rep. John B. Breaux, Rep. W. Henson Moore has been appealing to blacks in his attempt to become the state’s first Republican senator since Reconstruction.

In parts of the South, Republican are pushing hard for black votes. Only a third of Southern whites consider themselves Democrats today, compared to half in 1980, polls indicate. Thus, in states with a large number of black voters, as more white Democrats defect to the Republican Party, the remaining blacks become crucial swing votes.

“It’s practical politics,” said Greener. “If we increase the percentage of support from the blacks, it becomes physically impossible for a Democrat to beat us. That’s what’s going on.”

Historically, a lower percentage of black voters have turned out than white voters. This year, analysts say, a large black turnout could determine close Senate races in 10 states where blacks make up more than 5% of the voting age population. The states are Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Broyhill’s Fund-Raisers

In North Carolina, incumbent Sen. James T. Broyhill, a Republican running against former Democratic Gov. Terry Sanford, has held several fund-raising events with black businessmen and last week he appeared before the Black Republican Council in Charlotte. Although campaign officials had expected a crowd of more than 100, only about 40 persons attended.

“I think he’s making an effort,” said Merle Black, professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “But I don’t think he’s going to make much headway.

In Georgia, Sen. Mack Mattingly, the Republican incumbent, has targeted mailings in black neighborhoods and run ads on black radio in Atlanta and is currently favored to win his race against Rep. Wyche Fowler Jr. Mattingly, the first Republican senator in that state since Reconstruction, drew 40% of the black vote in his 1980 race.

In Pennsylvania, Sen. Arlen Specter, another moderate Republican with a strong civil rights record, also drew about 40% of the black vote in his 1980 race. He has campaigned heavily in black areas, and polls show him leading in his reelection battle against Rep. Bob Edgar.

A Healthy Development

Specter has been endorsed by the Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, who drew up widely cited guidelines for responsible corporate behavior in South Africa. He also has drawn black support for his Senate Judiciary Committee vote against Jefferson B. Sessions III, who was criticized for making derogatory statements about blacks, after President Reagan nominated him to the federal bench in Alabama.

In the long term, officials from both parties say, increased two-party competition for black voters is a healthy development.

“If we’re ever going to give black people an option, we should create a competition for their votes,” said Michigan’s gubernatorial candidate Lucas. “So no matter who wins, something in their agenda and policy will be heard.”