Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (2003-2009), who was impeached, removed from office, convicted, and sentenced to 14 years on federal charges of public corruption, had his sentence commuted (after serving eight years in prison) by former President Donald Trump in 2020.
[Note: A federal investigation and trial found Blagojevich guilty of public corruption after he tried to sell Barack Obama‘s Illinois U.S. Senate seat after Obama was elected president.]
During a 2010 interview with Esquire, Blagojevich spoke about President Obama: “Everything he’s saying’s on the teleprompter. I’m blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where he lived. I saw it all growing up.”
Blagojevich is currently campaigning for Trump, as the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee runs against incumbent Joe Biden.
I predict Trump will receive more black votes than any Republican since Nixon in 1960. pic.twitter.com/ipYw9I4sGG
— Rod Blagojevich (@realBlagojevich) June 15, 2024
On Newsmax, Blagojevich said of fellow convicted felon Trump: “What’s being done to Trump resonates in the Black community, particularly among Black men.”
He claims: “Trump is gonna win a larger percentage of the Black vote than any Republican president has achieved since Nixon in 1960.”
Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election to Democratic Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, who was endorsed by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and won 68 percent of Black votes. Nixon won 32 percent of the Black vote, which was the average for Republican presidential nominees (1932-1960).
Note: It was the 1964 presidential election which saw a historic shift of Black votes going from Republicans to Democrats, when the GOP nominated Barry Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Goldwater won just six percent of the Black vote.