Trump tells suburban voters they will ‘no longer be bothered’ by low-income housing

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday made one of his most overt appeals so far in the campaign to white, suburban voters, saying in a tweet that they will no longer be “bothered” by low income housing in their suburbs. 

Trump’s tweet referred to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule, an Obama administration update to the 1968 civil rights legislation, the Fair Housing Act. The rule required local governments receiving federal funds for housing and development to account for biased practices and craft a plan to fix them.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that it was replacing the fair housing rule with its own rule, one it dubbed “Preserving Community and Neighborhood Choice.”

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said the Obama-era rule “proved to be complicated, costly, and ineffective.”

“We found it to be unworkable and ultimately a waste of time for localities to comply with, too often resulting in funds being steered away from communities that need them most,” Carson said in a press release at the time.

Studies have shown for decades that concentrating low-income families into small geographic areas — one consequence of the urban housing projects built in the 1960’s and 1970s, only serves to exacerbate the difficulties that poor residents face.

And more recent studies have shown that one of the most successful ways to help low-income families get good educations for their children and integrate into the middle class is by integrating low-income housing into middle and upper-middle class neighborhoods.

But this message for Trump is about far more than just housing policy.

Trump’s tweets mark an escalation of his campaign strategy of trying to stoke fear in suburban voters that poor urban residents, who are overwhelmingly people of color, will move to their suburbs if low-income housing is permitted to be built in single-family home neighborhoods. 

Trump’s line of attack has been condemned by Democrats and by some Republicans, who say it echoes racist appeals made to white voters during the Civil Rights era. 

The remarks come as Trump’s reelection effort is faltering in the suburbs, fueled by his administration’s failed response to the coronavirus pandemic, the ensuing recession, and Trump’s aggressive rejection of the Black Lives Matter movement, which polls show suburban voters support by wide margins.

A recent Fox News poll showed Trump trailing the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, by 11 points nationwide in the suburbs.

Rather than attempt to expand his base of support by appealing, for example, to college educated women, Trump has instead doubled down on racist and divisive messages.

In the past month he has defended Confederate monuments and the Confederate flag, and he has threatened to veto a Defense bill that would rename military bases currently named for Confederate soldiers.

CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.