Democrats and “their shameless media enablers” are increasingly “race-baiting” ahead of the 2018 midterm elections because President Donald Trump’s policies “are working for African-Americans” — and because those policies jeopardize the so-called blue wave they’re anticipating. So said Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday night on “The Ingraham Angle,” as she reported from the state of Arizona.

“The better Donald Trump does among African-American voters, the more race-obsessed the Democrats and their shameless media enablers become,” Ingraham said. “The reason again for this Leftist race-baiting [is] Trump’s policies are working for African-Americans and the results are now beginning to come in.”

“Democrats sense it. They’re losing their grip on the black community,” Ingraham added. “Black unemployment is down, black entrepreneurism is up and the polls are moving.”

Trump only received eight percent of the total African-American vote in 2016. But a recent Harvard-Harris poll showed that Trump’s approval among black Americans rose from 10 percent in 2017 to 29 percent in 2018.

It also showed that African-Americans’ approval of Trump’s handling of the economy rose from 17 percent to 40 percent. Even their approval of Trump’s handling of immigration rose — from 15 percent to 29 percent.

In addition, a recent Rasmussen Reports poll showed that 36 percent of African-Americans approved of Trump’s performance as president.

But it’s difficult to think these numbers possibly could be true merely by listening to Democrats’ rhetoric and much of the mainstream media coverage ahead of the November 6 midterm elections.

Ingraham pointed to two particular gubernatorial elections that have caused Democrats to use “broad brush race-baiting” — Democrat Stacey Abrams’ bid against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum’s (D) race against Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.).

Both Abrams and Gillum are black, and both gubernatorial races are neck-and-neck with just four days to go.

“Broad-brush race-baiting desensitizes us to the real racists out there who should be condemned and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law when they commit heinous crimes and use violence to hurt and maim people of a different race,” Ingraham warned.

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“Do not let the race hucksters convince you to embrace the failure of the past,” Ingraham added.

“For the Democrats, this is not about protecting minority groups. It’s about regaining raw political power — even if it means turning American against American and stopping the economic revival we’ve seen, the best I think we’ve seen in decades across all races and all ethnicities.”

Niger Innis, the national spokesperson for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), agreed with Ingraham’s analysis, noting that race-baiting is what Democrats “go to in their playbook” when the stakes are high and the races are tight.

“They can’t talk about the economy and record-low black and brown unemployment — I mean, historic lows,” Innis said. “So they go to their dirty bag of tricks and they pull out the race card.”

But doing so “really sends the wrong message” to “young blacks, young whites, Hispanics, Asian-Americans” who actually do live in the United States, he said — “the freest liberty-embracing country, not only in the world, but in the history of the world.”

Kimberly Strassel, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, told Ingraham “the rhetoric” among liberals “has changed so much this election” for the worse — particularly when it comes to voter ID laws.

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“The complaint used to be tough voter ID laws. That’s now moved to claims of outright suppression,” Strassel said.

“[They] used to claim that Republicans had blatant racism. Now [they’re] outright calling them white nationalists. And there’s an electoral strategy behind this.”

“I think [Democrats] should be worried — they should be worried about the African-Americans because they’re going to lose them,” said Trump.

“To have African-Americans come out and vote for Republicans or worse in their mind simply not come out and vote for Democrats, stay home because they’re not animated against Donald Trump — that could be the difference between victory and defeat,” Strassel noted. “And that is why you see this rhetoric reaching such extraordinary levels.”

Trump told Ingraham earlier this week during an exclusive interview that “we have the best numbers we’ve ever had” among African-Americans.

“And I sometimes jokingly say, ‘It’s going to be awfully tough to beat me in a debate when I have the best numbers ever produced,'” Trump said. “So I think [Democrats] should be worried — they should be worried about the African-Americans because they’re going to lose them.”