Analysis: Black votes will define electability for Democrats (Associated Press, 9/5/2019)
For all the strategic calculations, sophisticated voter targeting and relentless talk about electability in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Democratic presidential nomination will be determined by a decidedly different group: black voters.
African Americans will watch as mostly white voters in the first two contests express preferences and winnow the field — then they will almost certainly anoint the winner.
This cycle, many black voters are also making a pragmatic choice — driven as much or more by who can defeat President Donald Trump as the issues they care about — and sitting back to see which candidate white voters are comfortable with before deciding whom they will back.
At the same time, the early courtship of black voters, overt and subtle, is part of a primary within the primary that includes detailed plans on issues like criminal justice reform, reparations, maternal mortality among black women, voter suppression and systemic racism.
AP Interview: Kamala Harris on race and electability in 2020 (Associated Press, 7/8/2019)
NEW ORLEANS — Kamala Harris can’t forget the older black woman she met in Iowa while campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama before the state’s 2008 caucus.
“I remember her saying to me, ‘They’re not going to let him win,‘” Harris recalled. “She did not want to go to the caucuses. She didn’t want to be disappointed.”
For Harris, it was a revealing moment, one she says illustrated the limitations many Americans, including black Americans, place on who is considered electable for the nation’s highest office.
Twelve years later, with American politics roiled by issues of race and gender, it’s Harris asking Americans to expand their definition of electability once again.
Warren building unlikely connection with black female voters (Associated Press, 5/18/2019)
HOUSTON — Elizabeth Warren was the last of eight presidential candidates to take the stage at Texas Southern University last month when she was pressed for a solution to black women dying during childbirth at far higher rates than white women.
The Massachusetts senator responded with what has become a campaign catchphrase: “So, I got a plan.” She proposed holding hospitals financially responsible for the disparity, imposing penalties on institutions that don’t act to prevent such deaths.
By the time Warren left the stage at the “She the People” forum, thousands of black women in the audience were on their feet roaring cheers and applauding. The reaction eclipsed the response earlier in the day to Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey — the black candidates in the Democratic contest. It reflected the unlikely traction that Warren, a 69-year-old white woman who lives in tony Cambridge, Massachusetts, is gaining with black women who are debating whom to back in a historically diverse primary.
White presidential hopefuls face ‘woke litmus test’ on race (Associated Press, 4/23/2019)
HOUSTON — After touring the National Lynching Memorial recently, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper spoke of the “shame” he felt that some white people “kind of looked the other way during these lynching incidents.”
Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas has acknowledged he “clearly had advantages” as a white man. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has said that any struggle she faced as a single mom was much more challenging for black women. U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio has talked about not knowing many black people when he was growing up. And Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, recently said , “Any white candidate needs to show a level of consciousness around issues like white privilege.”
Such rhetoric surrounding race is becoming what Democratic strategist Joel Payne called a “woke litmus test” for any white person who wants to win the Democratic presidential nomination. In a field celebrated for its historic racial and gender diversity, white candidates are talking about systemic racism and white privilege to connect with voters of color and prove that America’s racial divisions aren’t lost on them.
There are clear risks to Democrats who embrace talk of white privilege. Candidates could lose the moderate white men who live in suburbs and whose support will be necessary to defeat President Donald Trump. Republicans, including Trump, often blast Democrats for playing into “identity politics” when they talk about race.
2020 Democratic hopefuls embrace new meaning of reparations (2/25/2019)
Several Democratic presidential candidates are embracing reparations for the descendants of slaves — but not in the traditional sense.
Over the past week, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro spoke of the need for the U.S. government to reckon with and make up for centuries of stolen labor and legal oppression. But instead of backing the direct compensation of African-Americans for the legacy of slavery, the Democratic candidates are talking about using tax credits and other subsidies.
Long defined as some type of direct payment to former slaves and their descendants, the shifting definition of reparations comes as White House hopefuls seek to solidify their ties with African-Americans whose support will be crucial to winning the Democratic nomination. But it risks prompting both withering criticism from Republicans and a shrug from black voters and activists if the proposals are seen as an empty gesture that simply renames existing policy ideas as reparations.