FIRST ON FOX — Republicans are ramping up efforts to reach out to Black voters as a critical November election approaches, with President Biden, a Democrat, appearing to lose support with minorities. 

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, is spearheading an initiative to recruit Black voters, particularly Black men, into the party’s fold after former President Trump in 2020 showed surprising strength with that traditionally Democratic constituency. Hunt told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that Trump’s popularity with Black men is a “phenomenon,” and shared his view that the GOP has an opportunity to win a new generation of voters — if they show up where they are.

Republicans need to “fish where the fish are,” Hunt said: “Our party doesn’t always go to the Black community. I’ve been Black my whole life, man. Growing up — my family is from New Orleans, I grew up here in Houston. And it dawned on me that whenever you look around, you don’t see any Republicans actually taking what we want as a party to the Black community.” 

Hunt aims to change that with a series of events he’s calling “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars.” Throughout the summer, the Texas representative will host conversations inviting Black men who live in minority-majority cities in swing states to hear how Republicans will lead on issues that matter to all Americans. 

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The first event will take place on Tuesday, June 4th in Philadelphia and will feature a discussion between Hunt and his friend and college Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., with former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya as moderator. Similar events will follow in Atlanta, Ga, Detroit, Mich. Milwaukee, Wisc., Charlotte, N.C. and other cities in states key to winning the 2024 presidential election.

The initiative comes as recent polls have showed minority voters appearing to sour on President Biden. The surveys, released Monday by the New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer, show Trump with the lead in five of the six key battleground sates where he was narrowly defeated by Biden four years ago. 

Especially concerning for Democrats is the polls found Biden leading Trump among Black voters 63% to 23%, which would be a sharp drop from the 87% of Black voters who supported Biden in 2020 and helped him flip Georgia and other swing states. If the results stand on election day, Trump winning more than 20% of the Black vote would be the highest level of backing by Black voters of a GOP presidential candidate in generations. 

Hunt argues the tide is now turning in favor of Trump and Republicans. 

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A flyer advertises the “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” event featuring Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and moderator and former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya.  (Office of Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas)

“President Trump in 2020 got 18.2% of the Black male vote. That’s almost 20%. To put that in perspective, [2008 Republican nominee] John McCain got roughly 4% of the Black male vote. So what you’re seeing is exponential growth,” Hunt said. “And if we could turn that 20% into 25%, which is very likely at this point, now we’re having a very different conversation.” 

Hunt acknowledged that the dramatic political realignment he described “doesn’t happen overnight.” But he said the seed is planted because Biden has been “a horrible president in the Black community,” pointing to high inflation and the border crisis. 

Inflation rose again in April, with wholesale prices climbing another 2.2%, the highest level since April 2023, according to a Labor Department report released Tuesday. The report comes one day before the Biden administration will release the closely watched consumer price index (CPI), which measures prices paid directly by consumers. That report is expected to show inflation rose 0.4% in April from the previous month and climbed 3.4% from the same time last year.

“What you hear a lot is President Biden harps about how great the stock market is right now. Well yeah, that’s good if you have the kind of capital for investments. But everyday middle class workers that make under $80,000 a year are getting absolutely destroyed,” Hunt said, citing rising costs for eggs, bacon and other groceries. 

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“The Black community is hypersensitive to that because the Black community is in a lower socioeconomic demographic than the average American,” he added.

Fox News political analyst Gianno Caldwell said it is “critically important” for Republicans to be present in the Black community if they hope to win their support.

“Republicans don’t win in many of these areas because they don’t show up, and that’s what’s been the problem,” Caldwell said. 

He agreed with Hunt’s assessment that the Democratic Party’s stronghold on the Black vote is loosening as living costs rise and illegal immigrants receive millions of taxpayer dollars in benefits denied to American citizens. 

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A group of migrants receives food outside the migrant landing zone during a winter storm on January 12, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

“It’s beginning to fall apart with Joe Biden … with migrants coming from all over the world into particular communities and resources being usurped in those communities,” said Caldwell, mentioning his hometown of Chicago as an example. 

Matt Shupe, a Republican communications strategist and principal of Praetorian Public Relations, said Hunt and other Republicans would be wise to expand the party’s reach into places where the GOP has traditionally been risk-averse. 

“Republicans should be campaigning everywhere, all the time, and to all voters, especially to voters that typically don’t vote Republican. Politics is about addition, not stagnation. We cannot afford to cede entire demographic groups; we will eventually wither away from attrition,” Shupe said.

“What Rep. Hunt and Rep. Donalds are doing is great. We need more ‘brand ambassadors’ like them to go outside their districts and speak to voters who don’t typically hear from Republicans,” he added. 

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Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) speaks during the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors national summit at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown on June 30, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Donalds will appear with Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas at a “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” event in Philadelphia on June 4th.  (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

The “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” tour is Hunt’s own initiative and is not officially supported by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which seeks to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives. But the NRCC has launched a multi-million-dollar “Battle Station Program” that has set up field offices in 25 swing districts where Republicans hold office, with plans to add 20 offices in challenger districts once the primary season ends.

“Republicans can compete anywhere when we recruit candidates who share a similar life story and experiences as the people they are running to represent. Wesley Hunt is a critical partner in expanding the GOP’s outreach to minority voters,” said NRCC National Press Secretary Will Reinert.

Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District is a prime NRCC target, where former State Senator George Logan, who is Black, is expected to win the Republican primary and challenge Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn. If Logan wins, he would a small but growing number of Black Republicans serving in the House. 

Winning over a constituency that has backed the Democratic Party with super majorities since the Great Depression is no small task. But Hunt noted that between the 117th and 118th Congress, the number of Black Republicans elected doubled from two to four. He argues small, incremental changes will come as Black voters see young, enthusiastic Republicans like himself and Donalds, both under 45, engaging their communities and meeting them where they are. 

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, walks down the House steps of the Capitol on Thursday, May 18, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“This is the Republican Party today, and the reason why it’s the Republican Party today is the growth that we have seen over the course of the past few generations that created a Wesley Hunt,” Hunt said. 

“So now Wesley Hunt has got to tell the Black community this: I know what your grandparents went through. I know what your parents went through. But this is a true meritocracy today. And my generation doesn’t have any ties to Jim Crow. We have ties to a low mortgage. We have ties to feeling safe. We have ties to border security. We have ties to lower information. 

“We have developed a meritocracy, so let’s act like it — and the Republican Party is the one that wants to treat everyone fairly, and the Democratic Party is the party that wants to pick winners and losers,” Hunt said. “And that’s not America.” 

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Fox Business’ Megan Henney contributed to this update.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s speech on climate change at the Vatican this week gives him an opportunity to align himself and his party with Pope Francis, an influential figure among American Catholics and a leader in the fight against global warming.

But the California governor and the pope’s messages about reducing emissions may not sway American Catholics voting in the 2024 election, especially a monumental presidential contest that could alter national and global climate policies for generations.

Despite the high importance of elections to their shared climate concerns, the issue doesn’t historically drive the pope’s Catholic flock — or typical U.S. voters — to the polls. Catholics appear poised to back Donald Trump, a president who denies global warming and has threatened to reverse environmental protections, over a climate advocate in President Biden, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

“It’s not really a top tier issue,” said John K. White, an emeritus professor of politics at Catholic University of America. “But sometimes you have to put what you see as the interests of the country, and in this case, the world, ahead of how you think it’s going to play politically.”

Shortly before the governor boarded a plane bound to Rome on Tuesday, Newsom told reporters he plans to discuss the “leading initiatives” California has taken to address the crisis.

“No state has more to lose, not just more to gain, in terms of addressing climate change,” Newsom said at a news conference on mental health and homelessness in San Mateo County.

Pope Francis is the first pontiff to make climate change central to his papacy, and wrote a 2015 encyclical that relied on scientific facts about global warming to deliver a moral call to preserve the planet for future generations. He offered a second, more-aggressive decree last fall with another paper, called “Laudate Deum,” or “Praise God,” that challenged countries to protect God’s creation and commit to end the use of fossil fuels before it’s too late.

The pope’s climate advocacy, however, has not been fully embraced by deeply divided Catholic voters in the U.S., who vote more like the general electorate than strictly theological voters.

“They have concerns about climate, but that doesn’t rank nearly as high as the economy and they tend to be much more ethnic voters certainly than theological voters,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant based in California.

Though the pope has been critical of Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border policies, he does not formally endorse one presidential candidate over another and avoids directly meddling in U.S. elections. He influences policy through his own advocacy, such as gathering governors and mayors from around the globe to the climate summit at the Vatican this week to testify about how climate change has affected their own communities.

American bishops, as a group, are more conservative than the pope and have been active in elections. Bishops voted last year to make abortion the church’s political priority in the 2024 election. Some bishops have embraced Trump, who made good on a campaign promise to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops considered voting in 2021 to refuse communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, including Biden. The Vatican warned the conference against doing so and the bishops ultimately stopped short of a ban.

A pro-Trump faction of white Catholics feels threatened by the growing power of more liberal Latino Catholics within the church and resists the pope’s more-progressive policies, White said. They also tend to care more about abortion rights.

Latino Catholics, who favor Biden by a slim margin, are more concerned about the environment than their white peers, though the economy and immigration typically rank higher than climate change, according to White, Madrid and Pew data.

“They care about feeding their kids more than they are worried about these larger global issues,” Madrid said.

The views of Catholic voters are similar to the overall electorate. In a New York Times Poll conducted in late April and early May, U.S. registered voters ranked the economy as the most important single issue in the 2024 election, followed by immigration and abortion.

Aides to the governor say Newsom’s trip is focused on the existential worldwide environmental threat and isn’t a political calculation.

The governor is going to the Vatican as an evangelist on climate change and to testify about California’s experience and leadership, said Sean Clegg, a senior political advisor to Newsom.

“To be seen as a leader, and California is not just a national leader, but it’s really truly a global leader, you have to stand up and tell your story,” Clegg said.

Newsom’s predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown, blasted former President Trump’s climate policies during a speech at the Vatican in 2017 that intentionally exposed the divide between California and the White House to the world.

Newsom is expected to call out climate skeptics and oil and gas companies that profit off the burning of fossil fuels, and demand that world leaders consider the grave implications of elections in the U.S. and abroad this year. But he is not expected to mention Trump by name in his address to the pope and international leaders.

Newsom will undoubtedly hype the state’s climate policies, including efforts to meet the goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2045 and ambitions to phase out new gas-powered vehicles, and reference his own battles with oil companies. The governor will also offer testimony about the historic wildfires that have decimated California rural towns, floods that have ravaged picturesque coastal communities and years of drought that altered the state’s farmlands.

Outside the conference, Newsom is expected to sit down with the president of Italy and the mayor of Rome and travel to Bologna to sign a memorandum of understanding on addressing climate change. On a trip to Asia last fall, the California governor reached similar agreements with China, the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu, and the municipalities of Beijing and Shanghai.

For Newsom, meeting with the leader of the Catholic Church will almost assuredly enhance his national and worldwide political profile.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference Tuesday in San Mateo. Under mounting pressure to address the growing homelessness crisis in California, Newsom announced that his administration will make $3.3 billion available ahead of schedule for counties and private developers to start building more behavioral health treatment centers as part of his efforts to fund housing and drug use programs.

(Haven Daley / Associated Press)

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The pope enjoys a 75% approval rating among U.S. Catholics and — whether it’s discussing Gaza, Ukraine or the environment — his voice extends beyond the church.

Pope Francis called out the U.S. in his “Laudate Deum” letter last fall, pointing out that its emissions per individual are about two times greater than China‘s and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries in the world, said Mary Novak, executive director of the nonprofit NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice.

Newsom’s trip to the Vatican also gives him a chance to promote the state’s environmental agenda just days after he announced a proposal to reduce spending on climate change in California by $3.6 billion to close a budget deficit.

Being seen as a leader on climate in a country that the pope has criticized could benefit the governor. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu are also attending the conference.

“These are leaders who have been fighting climate change and [for] the transition to a clean energy economy for a very long time,” Novak said.

She added that it’s smart for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to invite leaders who can address climate change in their own states and communities to the conference, which is geared around slowing global warming and reducing emissions but also adapting to the reality of rising seas and hotter temperatures.

Newsom’s visit could deepen his standing with climate activists and young people, who care more about the environment than their parents.

“Being seen with the pope is still beneficial,” White said. “The Holy See is an important player on the world stage, not only in climate change, but also in diplomacy.”

Times Staff Writer Anabel Sosa contributed to this report.

A Maryland Democrat new to the national political stage has won her state’s Senate primary against a wealthy controversial congressman who spent millions of his own money on the race.

Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who could be the first Black woman from Maryland ever elected to the U.S. Senate, topped Rep. David Trone in a race called by The Associated Press.

She will now face former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan in what could end up being a race that’s more competitive than expected considering Maryland’s heavy Democratic leanings and Hogan’s popularity in the state.

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Trone spent about $60 million of his own money to defeat Alsobrooks, but a number of controversies and the latter’s popularity among state party figures appeared too much for him to overcome.

Alsobrooks was first elected as state’s attorney of Prince Georges County in 2010, where she served until being elected as country executive in 2018. She had never before run for federal office.

Democrats are hoping Black voters will rally around Alsobrooks’ potentially historic candidacy and that it will overcome Hogan’s popularity.

Larry Hogan, governor of Maryland, speaks during the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas, Nov. 18, 2022. (Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Democrats have a one-seat majority in the Senate, a narrow majority threatened by the number of seats being contested in states where Republicans are expected to perform well.

Election analysts rate the Maryland Senate race as “likely” Democrat.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.