Donald Trump sat down Saturday with Latino leaders from nearly a dozen states in his latest effort to appeal to minority voters who have largely spurned his struggling campaign.
After waging a year-long campaign marked by divisive and racially coded rhetoric, the Republican nominee reached out to blacks several times this week.
He insisted at rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan that he would do a better job than Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, at creating jobs and improving schools for black families.
On Saturday, he focused on Latino voters.
In a round table discussion with his campaign's Latino advisory council at Trump Tower in New York, the real estate mogul talked about creating jobs and his plans to limit immigration, according to attendees.
Colorado state Rep. Clarice Navarro, a member of the council who attended the meeting, said Trump heard the group's concerns.
"It's about jobs, jobs, jobs, and he really listened," said Navarro, a Republican. "I've always felt he does care about the Latino community and now it's on us to get him elected."
Trump's invective this election cycle _ he denounced Mexican immigrants as "rapists" and drug runners in his first campaign speech _ is unlikely to help his low standing with Latinos.
A national Fox News poll of Latino voters this month showed Clinton holding a 46-point advantage over Trump.
Clinton wallops Trump 91 percent to 1 percent among African American voters, according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll.
Trump is set to hold a rally Saturday night in Virginia, a swing state where polls show Clinton leading Trump by a sizable margin, partly because of the state's large black population.
President Barack Obama won Virginia in 2008 and 2012, the first Democrat to win the state twice since Franklin Roosevelt in 1944.
