Story highlights Donald Trump said Democrats have taken African-American voters for granted

The GOP nominee said Democratic rival Hillary Clinton is disrespectful of law enforcement

West Bend, Wisconsin (CNN) Donald Trump made a pitch for African-American voters on Tuesday by calling for more police in America's inner cities, arguing that Democratic policies have failed minority communities and accusing Democrats of "peddling the narrative of cops as a racist force."

"I'm asking for the vote of every African-American citizen struggling in our country today who wants a different and much better future. It's time for our society to address some honest and very very difficult choices," he said. "The Democratic Party has failed and betrayed the African-American community."

Speaking just 40 miles outside of Milwaukee, the city rocked by a wave of violent protests after a police shooting of an armed African-American man that reignited racial tensions, the Republican presidential nominee weaved his pledge to restore "law and order" and bring back jobs with an unrelenting barrage of attacks that painted Democratic policies as the engineers of poverty and crime in inner cities.

"To every voter in Milwaukee, to every voter living in the inner city or every forgotten stretch of society, I'm running to offer you a much better future," Trump said before tearing into Democrats. "They've taken African-Americans for granted. They just assume they'll get their support. They've taken advantage of the African-American citizen. It's time to give the Democrats some competition for these votes."

But Trump has more ground to make up with African-American voters than any Republican nominee in recent history, drawing just 1% of the African-American vote in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

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