Bruce Carter believes he could be "the LeBron James of politics" by the 2020 presidential election.

Correction: "Not maybe," he said. "I will be."

Right now, Carter is less center court than sideshow — albeit with a growing presence and reach in southern Dallas politics.

His local political fame so far extends to a failed recall effort for a City Council member and a role in a handful of campaigns. But this week, he got another little taste of a bigger stage.

Carter was the subject of a Bloomberg News report that chronicled how a reporter for the right-wing website Breitbart courted him as part of an effort to win or suppress black votes in the 2016 presidential election.

In this 2016 file photo, Bruce Carter, founder of Black Men for Bernie, talks to supporters in front of Los Angeles City Hall. Traveling in a tour bus wrapped in this slogan, the group campaigned for Bernie Sanders. (Al Seib / LA Times)

Before he became a Trump operative, Carter was best known nationally for running the group Black Men for Bernie — meaning Bernie Sanders, the socialist candidate seeking the Democratic nomination.

Carter doesn't see the ideological flip-flop as damaging his prospects one bit. He could be a hot political commodity for whichever party wants him, he said.

"When the 2020 elections come, the parties will need and want an exclusive relationship," he said in a phone interview with The Dallas Morning News. "And I'll just want LeBron James money at that point."

Carter describes himself as an entrepreneur. He acknowledges he didn't know much about politics until 2016 when he decided to hit the road to back Sanders. His Black Men for Bernie movement garnered Carter national attention from media outlets such as NBC News and metro newspapers. He became a minor campaign celebrity.

But, Bloomberg reported, a Breitbart staffer, Dustin Stockton, developed a relationship with Carter during the campaign season. Then, Stockton encouraged Carter to flip his allegiance to Trump after Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee. The switch, which Breitbart then reported as news, produced viral headlines.

Bloomberg reported that former Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon, who became a top Trump aide, put Carter in touch with Darren Blanton, a Dallas financier who founded Colt Ventures. Carter said he was frustrated that he didn't get more money from Blanton for his political work.

Attempts to reach Blanton through Colt Ventures were not successful.

During the campaign, Carter pushed a message that Clinton was more frightening to him than Trump, and part of his goal was to tell black people to stay at home if they weren't voting for Trump. Carter was also publicly critical of Democrats' work in black neighborhoods, and he still is.

Carter said his support for Trump drove a wedge between him and some of his black friends and family.

Shirl Donaldson, an assistant professor of technology at the University of Texas at Tyler, has known Carter since 2015 and worked with him on a non-political research project. She said she didn't approve of him campaigning for Trump, "but I knew him, and I knew his heart was in the right place."

Carter is charismatic and authentic and has "a tremendous work ethic," she said.

"You talk about walking both sides of the street, he has that charismatic personality where people like him," Donaldson said. "People will talk to him. People you wouldn't typically think he would know or typically be friends with -- everybody from the hood to the country club."

How that charisma translated into votes in 2016 is unclear. But the Bloomberg report cites a correlation between Carter's target areas and thousands of fewer black voters turning out for Clinton than they had for President Barack Obama.

Carter basked in the spotlight and rubbed elbows with other Trump associates during the campaign. But after the election, he was on the outs because of past federal gun charges, for which he spent time in prison.

In 2017, Carter returned home to Dallas and went to work for former City Council member Dwaine Caraway's campaign against incumbent Carolyn King Arnold. His firm, Ground Strategies, earned $6,890 for its work. Caraway won.

Carter also volunteered for Tennell Atkins' runoff campaign because he wanted the experience. Atkins says he knows little about him.

Caraway consultant Winsor Barbee said Carter knows a lot of people and understands the community.

But, she added, Carter might overthink some of his tactics, such as his push to register new voters. And while she believes Carter has done some good work, she doesn't know whether he had a major impact for Caraway and Atkins, who have long histories in Dallas politics and have won elections previously.

Carter, Barbee said, is "a businessman" and "a hired gun" who is selling himself.

"As an entrepreneur, you have to figure out how to monetize the situation," she said. "Bruce was able to monetize it just a little bit better on the Trump side."

Carter disagreed with Barbee's assessment. But he did sense an opportunity after the council elections to put together events after the first anniversary of the July 7 ambush.

Dubbed "The Weekend of Honor," the event included tribute ceremonies, an attempt to break the world record for longest chain of people making heart-shaped hand gestures and a teen's announcement of a massive benefit concert at the Cotton Bowl, which never happened.

Carter has since stuck around City Hall and briefly pushed for a recall of council member Kevin Felder, who unseated Tiffinni Young only months earlier.

But that effort went nowhere, and Carter now says former City Council member Diane Ragsdale was behind it. He said the recall failed because Ragsdale didn't come up with the money to pay him.

Ragsdale said Carter's characterization is "grossly untrue" and that she had nothing to do with the recall. She said the entire production was Carter's doing.

Carter said he's got his eye on the council and mayoral elections next year. He said he's had young people going to council meetings and observing.

He also plans to play a role in the November elections locally. He wants to run a candidate as a write-in against longtime U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas.

Former City Council member Erik Wilson, who lost to Atkins, said Carter reached out to him about becoming that candidate. Wilson declined, but Carter said he has other possible candidates lined up.

For now, Carter is in South Carolina ahead of the gubernatorial race there. He's working for a political group called The People's Ticket, which is targeting single mothers, felons, hospitality workers and others. He says he is assembling a database of voters who provide their information willingly after hearing or seeing advertising about programs that could help them. Carter said that might include messages about affordable housing or owed child support or for ex-convicts.

By 2024, when he believes he'll be a star political consultant, he hopes to be "a national candidate for the people."

Barbee said Carter should have dreams, but she is skeptical.

"There's so many people out there, especially now in Dallas politics, that consider themselves strategists," she said. "I just don't think everybody really gets a full handle on it. It's not as easy as 'I'm going to be the strategist in 2020 that everybody comes to.' It doesn't work. It takes a lot, and politics is changing now."