Black GOP congressional candidate encourages party to compete in inner cities

Black Republican congressional candidate Kim Klacik, who entered the spotlight last year with videos attacking the late Rep. Elijah Cummings on the decline of Baltimore, brought her message to the Republican National Convention Monday night.

Klacik was defeated by Democrat Kweisi Mfume to fill Cummings' seat in a special election in April, and is now facing off against Mfume again in November's general election.

Klacik taped her convention remarks in West Baltimore, the same location she used for a campaign video titled "Black Lives Don't Matter to Democrats," that was launched last week and shared by the president.

In her RNC remarks, she once again blamed Democrats for "running this beautiful city into the ground."

"Abandoned buildings, liquor stores on every corner, drug addicts, guns on the street. That's now the norm in many neighborhoods," she said.

Klacik's videos last summer blaming Cummings for the increase in litter and crime in Baltimore prompted President Donald Trump to attack Cummings for his leadership over the city, tweeting that the city was a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."

Klacik contended that Black voters will not all flock to the Democrats and that Republicans could turn the city around.

"I want Baltimore to be an example to Republicans around the country. That we can compete in our inner cities if we reach out to the citizens and deliver real results," she said.

Mfume told the Baltimore Sun that Klacik's message to Republicans was "about 50 years too late."

"Donald Trump and his party don't give a damn about inner cities, which is why they never win there. People can see what's going on," he told the paper Monday.