Black turnout for Biden in these 3 Midwestern cities viewed as key

DETROIT - When Democrats lost the presidency to Donald Trump four years ago, their biggest vote drop-offs were centered on a trio of Midwestern Rust Belt cities with large Black populations - Detroit, Milwaukee and Cleveland.

This year, all three anchor battleground states that Democratic nominee Joe Biden hopes to reclaim for his party, and recent polls show him in the lead.

But in 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton led some of the same October polls in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio only to lose them all, thanks largely to blue-collar white voters turning to Trump and some African Americans turning away from the election altogether.

Biden has tried to win back non-college educated white voters, and his candidacy has been buoyed by a shift in support from seniors and suburban women who historically have voted for Republicans. But Biden's campaign and top party officials in all three states point to rebuilding Black voter turnout - a bedrock of Democratic victories for decades - as key to shoring up the Midwestern battlegrounds the party lost four years ago.

So far, party leaders and Biden's African American surrogates in the three cities are projecting confidence that their voter outreach efforts will deliver - despite much of it being relegated to the virtual realm amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The work, they said, only has been energized by Biden's running mate selection of California U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American named to a major presidential ticket.

"The Trump presidency was a theory in 2016, and the deadly nature of the Trump presidency is a reality in 2020," said Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, a Detroit native and top Biden surrogate. "In our Black communities, we realize how urgent this moment is and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris know how urgent this moment is, and that's why they've