A group of prominent African-American members of Congress were headed to South Florida on Thursday for a two-day push to help Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump in the nation’s biggest battleground state.
Rep. Alcee Hastings, a 12th-term congressman from Miramar, Florida, was to be joined by Reps. Charlie Rangeland Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and by Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green of Texas in a swing through Broward County, Florida.
Almost 30 percent of Broward residents are black, forming one of the state's largest African-American voting blocs and a hub of a critical demographic group for Clinton to win the nation's most important swing state in the Nov. 8 presidential election.
"With the rhetoric that we've heard from the Republican ticket, there can be little doubt how dangerous a Trump presidency would be for our country," Hastings told McClatchy. "We are here, first and foremost, to rally the African-American community in South Florida to elect Hillary Clinton as president and Patrick Murphy as our next United States senator."
Murphy, a Democratic congressman from Jupiter, Florida, is running against Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Miami.
The congressional group's first stop was slated to be Thursday evening to address a meeting of the Haitian American Democratic Club at Diecke Auditorium in Plantation.
Hastings and his Congressional Black Caucus colleagues had six events planned for Friday, including stops at popular soul food restaurants in Fort Lauderdale, visits to two Clinton campaign offices and a foot canvas of a neighborhood in the Broward city of Sunrise.
James Rosen: 202-383-6157, @jamesmartinrose