One month ago, on a sunny morning, the oddest of couples stood behind microphones to make a big announcement about the race for mayor in Milwaukee: Retiring Ald. Joe Davis, who had come in third in the primary, was endorsing Ald. Bob Donovan, the outspoken South Sider who finished second to incumbent Tom Barrett.

The endorsement will most likely not have much impact on the race, but it did raise the question of how Davis could endorse a man who could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as a strong advocate for the black community.

Davis said he wasn’t interested in talking any more about city politics.

"I’m turning a new page in my life," he said. "I just don’t want to talk about that any more."

It is safe to say, however, that Davis believes that the conditions for black people in Milwaukee have gotten worse over the 12 years that Barrett has been mayor. In the past, he has cited statistics – ranging from homicide and other crime rates, unemployment and deteriorating housing stock – as evidence of the decline in black neighborhoods.

He has acknowledged during his campaign that the mayor is not the only reason for the problems, but he has complained that Barrett has done little to reverse the conditions. And it’s also fair to say that his campaign's cries for a change in city leadership spawned his endorsement of Donovan.

Barrett won the primary with 46 percent of the vote to 33 percent for Donovan and 19 percent for Davis, and some political observers, along with Donovan himself, have suggested the 19 percent combined with his 33 percent would be enough to give Donovan the victory.

Experience, however, points to the fallacy of that supposition.

"Generally speaking," said Mordecai Lee, a professor at UWM and an expert in election and public policy, "endorsements like this in America don’t mean bupkis." 

Todd Robert Murphy is a consultant who has worked on more than 80 campaigns and is an acknowledged expert is voting patterns and strategy.

"You can't transfer the personal popularity from one candidate to another," Murphy said.

"If Joe Davis did robocalls for Donovan in targeted areas, it could help. The problem is money, message and strategy – all of which Donovan appears to lack. Much too much emphasis is placed on endorsements creating vote. It's an amateur's trap."

There are a couple of other factors that argue against a significant African-American vote in favor of Donovan, one of which Barrett used during a recent televised debate between the two.

Midway through the debate, Barrett reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out a folded piece of paper and smoothed it out in front of him. You just knew something was coming, and when the talk turned to the discussion of conditions in the black community, Barrett struck.

"In 2011, in a press release, you said, ‘And let’s face it, it (a disturbance at State Fair) has much to do with a deteriorating African-American culture in our city.’"

"To blame all those troubles on a culture, on a race is Trump-esque," Barrett said.

Another factor that argues against the black community supporting Donovan is the fact that he is almost slavishly devoted to a powerful police force in the city. There is no love lost between large pockets of the black community and the police department, and pledges to make the city safer via more police won’t strike much of a positive chord.

In addition, Donovan has allied himself with Sheriff David Clarke, a black man who continually demonstrates how out of touch he is with the black community. Donovan pleaded with the sheriff to help stop a rash of auto thefts in his district, claiming the administration of the police department was preventing effective action to stop them.

For his part, Donovan thinks that it’s just his enemies who are causing his problems.

"There is a whispering campaign that I’m a racist," he said. "I am not a racist."

Despite his difficulties with the black community – over 40 percent of the population in the city – there are a couple of things that may give Donovan some hope.

One is if there is a significant turnout of voters who don’t like the streetcar that Barrett has championed building Downtown. Donovan's opposition to the streetcar is a centerpiece of his campaign.

A huge turnout of Republican voters excited by the GOP presidential primary race could give Donovan a potential advantage. However, the city is overwhelmingly Democratic, and if Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton remain in a close race, that may help even out any kind of Republican groundswell that would almost certainly favor Donovan over Barrett.

It would not be surprising to see Barrett get more than 60 percent of the vote over Donovan with the Davis endorsement having almost no impact on the results.