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When Kamala Harris arrived in the Senate in early 2017, she was only the sixth Black person to win election to the chamber since Reconstruction and just the second Black woman to get there. Now the Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency could help a third and fourth Black women join the Senate through elections in Maryland and Delaware. And, if things keep trending in Democrats’ direction, she might even help an eighth Black politician make it to the Senate by way of Texas’ ballot boxes.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]In the week since President Joe Biden announced he would step aside from renomination and in short order endorsed Harris, plenty has been said about how the former career prosecutor from California re-energized Democrats’ optimism that they could block former President Donald Trump’s return to power. A staggering $200 million fundraising haul, an aggressive reposturing of Biden’s existing campaign machine, and a vibe reboot all have been packed in the last few days with Harris at the helm. But lesser-appreciated are the down-ballot effects that are just now starting to come into focus.
In three states, voters are set to cast ballots featuring Black candidates for President and Senate on a major party’s ticket. That’s never happened before in our country’s history. When Barack Obama was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008 and 2012, none of the party’s Senate candidates were Black.
Both Maryland county exec Angela Alsobrooks and Delaware Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester are running to replace a retiring Democratic incumbent. Both races are in states that tend to send Democrats to Washington, although in this environment nothing is a sure thing. For one, Republican Larry Hogan, the well-regarded former Maryland Governor, remains a potentially popular crossover figure who keeps Democrats in D.C. looking over their shoulder for a surprise late-breaking race. And Delaware’s Blunt Rochester is seen as a favorite in a state that last sent a Republican to Congress back in 2008, but is far from coasting.
And in Texas—where Harris is set to return on Wednesday for her third visit inside the month—Rep. Colin Allred is trailing by single digits in polls against Sen. Ted Cruz. That race remains a tough one for Allred—a Democrat hasn’t won statewide in Texas in decades—but Harris’ campaign is not ready to write off a state that has repeatedly been cast as on the cusp of turning purple until votes start to be counted.
Democratic strategists are careful to note that Senate campaigns these days are so large they rival presidential runs of decades past. They have their own inertia and gravity, with one current insider describing marquee Senate races as carrying their own weather systems independent of the national trends. Even so, there is nearly universal relief that Biden is no longer a low-pressure system parked on the down-ballot map.
Democrats are running with almost zero margin of error. They hold 47 seats in the Senate and another four independents generally align with them, yielding a fragile one-seat majority. One of those lawmakers, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, is leaving Washington at the end of this term, all but surrendering the seat to Republicans. Across the Capitol, House Democrats are working to close a net five-seat deficit that stands between them and a majority.
Republicans have uniformly dismissed Harris’ boomlet as something of a honeymoon period, a sugar high that will leave Democrats crashing once voters start to inspect Harris’ record. Her pick of a running mate in the coming days will subject her decision making to scrutiny, and her nominating convention in Chicago in two weeks will be far different than the one planned when Biden was still running.
At the fore, however, will be a trio of potential history-making Senators, all of whom stand to take advantage of Harris’ tailwinds. With an electorate—and donor pool—already primed to help Harris make history and block Trump, the Senate races in Maryland, Delaware, and maybe even Texas stand to also add to the meager list of Black people who have won election to the Senate. Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, and Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, sit alongside Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, as winners of elections to the chamber, while Sen. Laphonza Butler drew the appointment as a temporary lawmaker from California when Sen. Dianne Feinstein retired early.
Of the more than 2,000 men and women to have served in the Senate since the country’s founding, the fact that we are talking about the history-remaking impact of a slate of three Black contenders is still sobering. It’s a reality that is lost on no operatives working on Senate races this cycle.
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