Black voters are worried about bearing the brunt of the blame if Democrats lose key races on Tuesday.
They are pleading for Democrats to not fall into what they see as a longstanding pattern: Black voters get blamed after Democratic disappointments, they say, and ignored after Democratic wins.
And amid an election cycle that hinges on a number of nail-biter races and the presidential election looming, advocates say to fall into that trap in 2023 would be at Democrats’ peril in 2024.
“In every election since 2016, Black voters have shown up in record and historic numbers,” said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC. “I don’t think that this midterm is going to be any different, and we’ve seen the result of early voting in critical states around the country, and those early vote numbers include Black voters.”
Black voters make up a key voting bloc for Democrats and are seen as crucial in some of the most closely-watched races this week.
That includes Georgia, where Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) is battling against Republican Herschel Walker to keep his seat and keep Democrats in control of the upper chamber. The state has seen record-breaking early voter turnout, and on Monday, Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams released findings showing Black voter turnout has increased 16 percent since the 2018 midterms.
Advocates have lauded the increased attention Democrats have given Black voters in Georgia in recent weeks.
The voting bloc has also been at the center of some of the party’s biggest wins.
In 2016, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton received 91 percent of the Black vote, according to Brookings Institution. By 2020, 30 million Black Americans were eligible to vote, with more than one-third living in nine of the nation’s most competitive states including Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to Pew Research Center. That year, Joe Biden received 92 percent of the Black vote.
The result, argued Democratic strategist Christopher Huntley, is the Democratic Party takes Black voters for granted.
And when the party does make an effort to engage Black voters, it often happens late in the election cycle — leaving room for finger-pointing once the results are in, said Shropshire.
“It happens so close to the election that on the other side the question becomes, ‘What happened? Did they show up?’” she said. “The last minute media attention on the Black vote gets unfairly tied to the outcome of the election.”
It’s not the first time Black Democrats have had to issue such a warning.
After the 2014 midterms, then-Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) argued against blaming Black voters for Democrats’ losses, saying community organizations and churches did their part to mobilize the community and that the losses were due to low turnout among a number of other constituencies.
“What is required for Democrats to win is a coalitional vote, not just the Black vote,” said Shropshire. “Regardless of the outcome of any of [Tuesday’s] races, whether they are predicted victories or surprise victories or surprise losses or predicted losses, the evaluation needs to be of the entire electorate and the coalition.”
But with races in battleground states heating up, the potential for the House to flip Republican is becoming increasingly likely, as is the possibility for blame to once again be placed on Black voters.
Anyone who “can be taken seriously” would know not to turn around and blame a political shift on Black voters, Huntley said, but Democrats also shouldn’t be surprised by increased frustrations from Black voters.
“Black people show up, Black people do what we are asked to do,” he said. “And quite often, we do it and don’t get what we’ve been promised.”
This leads to Black voters feeling ignored and unheard, said Alicia Garza, principle of Black to the Future Action Fund, and that could spell trouble for 2024.
“Black voters feel like we’re not being listened to, that our priorities aren’t being acknowledged,” explained Garza. “What that results in, at its very worst, is Black voters really being encouraged to stay at home.”
And surveys by Black to the Future Action Fund show the priorities of Black voters are, in some ways, life or death. Core issues driving Black voters to the polls include inflation and the economy, jobs and the cost of living, and white supremacy and white nationalistic political violence.
That’s why the onus needs to be on the party itself, Huntley added, not on Black voters.
“What we’re seeing right now is the confirmation that people are struggling, and there are some Democrats who didn’t show up the way that they should have and they didn’t do a good enough job to relate that they understand that pain,” said Huntley.
That’s not to say all Democrats fall into this trap.
After Biden’s election in 2020, many credited the work of Abrams and her organization, Fair Fight, for turning Georgia blue and securing Democrats the White House and 50-50 tie in the Senate. It was one of the few times the work of Black women specifically was acknowledged in a political outcome.
“Party operatives don’t seem to be able to figure out how to make Black voices matter in our political system,” Garza said.
“It’s important that we do tell the story of how it is that Georgia has become such a powerhouse in our national politics, and that we credit the work of Black women like Stacey Abrams, like LaTosha Brown, like Nse Ufot, or Deborah Scott. There’s so many Black women across the country who are doing the things that our government should be doing and it’s time that that equation shifts a little bit.”
She added that it’s usually the work of Black organizations, like Black to the Future, Black Voters Matter and even the NAACP, to educate Black voters on their rights and encourage them to go to the polls.
Despite this, Black voters continue to be the strongest constituency of the Democratic Party.
“Black voters regardless are showing up,” said Garza. “We are turning out, we are bringing our friends, we are mobilizing our families because we understand at this stage in the game, the only people who are going to prioritize us is us.”
Instead of holding the Black voters accountable for an Election Day failure, Democrats need to take a look at what policies they promised but failed to deliver, said Huntley.
“This is America and we have that impulse to swing between extremism and progress toward freedom,” said Huntley. “This election is going to decide which way we go on that spectrum and if we don’t move forward, if we don’t move into more of a Democratic lead, that will not be because of Black people and Black voters. That is going to be the result of a party and a president and an administration who didn’t hear us, didn’t take the time to speak directly to us, who did things for us but didn’t go the extra mile.”