(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden is moving to win back Black voters who are crucial to his reelection chances this year.

On Monday, Biden traveled to South Carolina — the state that rescued his 2020 presidential bid — to argue they should rally to his side again despite misgivings about his handling of the economy, his age and the administration’s halting progress on issues like voting rights, student loans and police reform.

Instead, Biden offered a sweeping and at times emotional plea from the pulpit of Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, a historic Black church where a White supremacist gunman killed nine people in 2015. Biden evoked the history of the American Civil War and said that former President Donald Trump and Republicans were seeking to mount a “second lost cause” that would disenfranchise and disadvantage Black Americans. 

Biden needs Black communities in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Detroit to turn out in November in order to carry states that will decide the 2024 election. But polls show those same voters have grown increasingly frustrated with the administration on key issues. Trump, the GOP frontrunner, is eager to chip away at Biden’s electoral coalition ahead of their likely rematch.

At the church, Biden keyed in on his likely Republican opponent, pointing to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, when Trump supporters sought to invalidate an election in which Black voters helped propel Biden to victory.

“In their world, all these Americans, including you, don’t count,” Biden said. “But that’s not the real world. That’s not democracy. That’s not America. In America, we all count.”

‘He’s a Loser’

“Losers are taught to concede when they lose,” Biden said of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “He’s a loser.”

Biden’s first two campaign events of the year have taken him to Pennsylvania, the state that delivered him the White House in 2020, and South Carolina, where Black Democratic voters gave him his first primary victory that year.

“It’s not possible for a Democrat to be elected president of the United States without winning the African-American vote,” Biden deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks told reporters Monday after the speech. “We want to continue to earn their continued support or work to earn their continued support.”

Biden has pivoted to directly targeting his Republican challengers in recent weeks. On Friday, he spoke near the historic Revolutionary War site of Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, making a stark case to voters that Trump is a danger to democracy who should not return to office. 

Monday’s speech brought him to the home state of another Republican contender, Nikki Haley, who has also struggled on issues of race. Haley was governor of South Carolina during the Charleston shooting and gained national attention by urging lawmakers there to remove a Confederate flag from the state house grounds. Haley, though, drew criticism from figures in both parties last month for initially failing to name slavery as a cause of the American Civil War.

Biden referenced the controversy Monday.

“They say they embrace what’s known as the lost cause: the self-serving lie that the Civil War is not about slavery, but about states’ rights. They call that the noble cause. That was a lie,” Biden said. “Let me be clear for those who don’t seem to know: slavery was the cause of the Civil War.”

Haley’s campaign responded that Biden had a history of making insensitive comments on race and praising segregationists.

Polling Woes

Biden’s visit to the state that gave him one of his defining political moments comes at a weak point in his reelection bid, with polls showing him trailing Trump in swing states amid voter unease. 

His favorability among Black voters in seven swing states has slipped 7 percentage points since October to 61% in December, according to a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. Trump’s held steady at about 25%.

Older Black voters tend to be a reliable group for Democrats but Biden’s troubles lie with younger voters, who question his handling of the Israel-Hamas war and want him to more aggressively champion progressive policies. 

A handful of protesters interrupted Biden’s remarks Monday, calling for a cease-fire in the war. “I understand their passion and I am quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce significantly and get out of Gaza,” Biden said. 

White House efforts to address some issues important to Black voters, such as gun violence and student-debt relief, have been stymied by congressional Republicans and the Supreme Court.

--With assistance from Stephanie Lai and Hadriana Lowenkron.

(Adds comments from Biden deputy campaign manager in 9th paragraph)

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