AFRICAN AMERICANS/ELECTION/SPORTS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “In front of an audience of 102 million Super Bowl viewers Sunday [2-2-20] night, Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old African-American woman, became the unlikely face of President Trump’s re-election campaign. In a 30-second spot that cost Mr. Trump’s campaign millions of dollars, Ms. Johnson’s face fills up the screen as she tearfully thanks ‘President Donald John Trump’ for her early release from prison. Mr. Trump commuted her sentence in June 2018, after the reality television star Kim Kardashian West personally appealed to the president on her behalf. Ms. Johnson had been serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug conviction. Even before the ad, Ms. Johnson was already something of a touchstone for Mr. Trump, who invited her to attend his State of the Union address last year and highlighted her story in his speech.”
–Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman, “Trump and Kushner Saw Super Bowl Ad as Way of Making Inroads With Black Voters,” The New York Times online, February 4, 2020