Biden upsets local community leaders after skipping trip to a Black church in Michigan: 'Missed opportunity'

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Local Black leaders are reportedly feeling alienated after what some saw as a "missed opportunity" for President Biden to interact with more members of the community during his campaign stop in Saginaw, Michigan.

Organizers familiar with last week's trip plans said that one of several original proposed sites for the president to visit was a Black church. The idea was to find a venue where union workers, Black community leaders, college students and supporters from other key constituencies could head out after the event and knock on doors for Biden. However, the president ultimately only went to the front porch of two local leaders, who are both White, then met with a Black family at a public golf course.

Hurley Coleman Jr., a supporter of Biden and a pastor in Saginaw, said the trip was a "missed opportunity" for the president's campaign to engage with the community in a way that was "real as opposed to what we saw."

"I can’t escape the reality of what was initially anticipated didn’t happen," Coleman Jr., whose son and grandson met Biden at the golf course, told the Associated Press. "And what was initially anticipated really needs to happen. And sooner rather than later."

US President Joe Biden is greeted by Hurley Coleman III and Hurley Coleman IV while arriving for a campaign event with supporters at Pleasant View Golf Course in Saginaw, Michigan, on March 14, 2024. ((Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images))

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Pamela Pugh, the State Board of Education president and resident of Saginaw, said Black leaders and religious leadership "felt like there was an opportunity that was missed for there to be back-and-forth conversation, but also room for it being more inclusive and inviting of the larger base."

Pugh also called it a "slight on the Black American community," especially because "he was coming to Saginaw, and it seemed like it was to meet with the communities of color."

Dr. Craig Tatum, the senior pastor at New Life Baptist Church Ministries in Saginaw, said his church was selected to be the one Biden was going to visit. 

"I wasn’t necessarily given any reason why things changed," he said, adding that it was an honor to be considered. 

"Folks seem like they did indeed get their hopes up. It was a smaller crowd, 40, 50 people at most – but I think it was a pretty good blend, age and gender and race, labor leadership, party leadership, activists," Brandell Adams, who posed with Biden for a photo at the front porch event, said. "There’s more than 50 people that are influential in Saginaw. So, if I didn’t get the opportunity to be on that porch that day, I may have felt some sort of way as well."

US President Joe Biden (C) talks to supporters at a campaign event outside a private home in the Cathedral District neighborhood of Saginaw, Michigan, on March 14, 2024.  (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

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Any perceived slights could loom large, with some Biden allies already concerned about anger in Michigan's sizable Arab American community over Israel's war in Gaza.

According to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released in January, Biden's support among Black voters has fallen to just 63%, down from the 92% that Pew Research Center data shows he won in the 2020 presidential election. His support among Hispanic voters is down to 34% from 59%.

Biden’s reelection campaign referred questions about the visit to community leaders and attendees of the president’s events as well as to the Michigan Democratic Party. State party chair Lavora Barnes said in a statement, "You can’t get a more fired up or authentic Joe Biden than the one we saw on a porch in Saginaw."

President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event at Pullman Yards on March 9, 2024, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)

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A Gallup poll released in February found that while Democrats still hold a significant advantage over Republicans with Black voters, their 47-point lead is the "smallest Gallup has recorded in its polling, dating back to 1999."

When asked what political party they identify with, 19% of Black adults said Republican or lean Republican, compared to 66% who said Democrat or lean Democrat. 

Fox News' Brandon Gillespie and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.