Rep. Donna Edwards, a Democrat running for a Senate seat in Maryland, blasted her own party and said racism is keeping her campaign from getting full support.
{mosads}“I thought the Republican Party was full of dog whistles, but the Democratic Party has a foghorn,” Edwards said in an interview with Buzzfeed on Saturday.
“As a sitting member of the House, as the ranking Democrat on one of our committees in the House, as the co-chair of our steering and policy committee sitting at the leadership table with Leader Pelosi, as former chair of the bipartisan women’s caucus, a lawyer – how dare they describe me as unqualified?”
Edwards has only received a few endorsements from members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and a coalition of current and former presidents of local NAACP chapters have backed her primary opponent, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
“I’m dumbfounded by Democrats who don’t see the value of race and gender as part of a mix of who we are on public and private lives,” she said. “It’s sad to have Democrats using terms like ‘identity politics’ — those are not our words. Those are the words of the right.”
“When I began this race I decided that I was going to run as who I am: I am a black woman. There is no hiding that, nor would I want to. And one of the reasons I am a Democrat is because I believe in the idea of a big tent and that each one of us has something to contribute.”
According to Real Clear Politics’s average of polls in the state, Van Hollen leads by about 7 points among Democratic primary voters. If elected, Edwards would be one of only two black Democrats in the Senate.