Record number of Black women set to run for U.S. Congress
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[July 28, 2020]
By Makini Brice
WASHINGTON(Reuters) - Joyce Elliott, an
Arkansas state senator who is seeking a U.S. congressional seat in
November, was the second Black student to attend her local public high
school; the first was her older sister. If elected in November, she will
be the first Black lawmaker in Congress from Arkansas, ever.
On the campaign trail in June, Elliott attended a demonstration against
racism in White County, which is more than 90% white, and spoke to
attendees in the shadow of a Confederate monument.
The November election is a "chance to change our history," she told
Reuters afterward. "I really decided I needed to run because I could see
a pathway to winning."
As the United States grapples with a deadly coronavirus pandemic that
has disproportionately sickened and killed Black Americans and recent
upheaval over police brutality, a record number of Black women are
running for Congress.
Elliott is one of at least 122 Black or multi-racial Black women who
filed to run for congressional seats in this year's election; this
figure has increased steadily since 2012, when it was 48, according to
the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP).
As primary season draws to a close, nearly 60 Black women are still in
the running, according to Collective PAC.
"People are becoming more comfortable with seeing different kinds of
people in Congress. You don't know what it looks like to have powerful
Black women in Congress until you see powerful Black women in Congress,"
said Pam Keith, a Navy veteran and attorney who is running in the
Democratic primary for a Florida congressional seat.
Black women are nearly 8% of the U.S. population, but 4.3% of Congress,
according to a report by the Center of Women and Politics and
Higher Heights for America, a political action committee that seeks to
elect more progressive Black women to elected office. They are
underrepresented in statewide executive's jobs and among mayors as well,
according to the report.
But Black women voters showed the highest participation rate of
any group in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.
Historically, Black women have been more likely to win in
majority-Black districts, but many are running this cycle in majority
white or mixed districts, some of which had previously voted for
Republicans.
"We're going to flip this seat from red to blue," said North Carolina's
Patricia Timmons-Goodson, the first Black judge to serve on the state
Supreme Court and a former member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
"We have a candidate that knows and understands the district and its
people," said Timmons-Goodson, who is running for a seat in Congress.
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Joyce Elliot, a Democratic U.S. congressional candidate for
Arkansas' 2nd district (AR-02) which represents Little Rock and the
surrounding areas, works from her office in Little Rock, Arkansas,
U.S., July 20, 2020. REUTERS/Gerard Matthews
Several of the eight Black women congressional candidates Reuters
spoke to said they relate to voters better than their often
wealthier opponents, because they, too, have lived through fiscal
hardships.
"We almost lost our house a couple of times. We ran into financial
difficulties when I was first starting my business," said Jeannine
Lee Lake, a former journalist who is running for Congress from
Indiana against U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's brother, Greg
Pence, an incumbent business executive who reported millions
in assets last election cycle.
The coronavirus crisis has also highlighted the importance of issues
these women are running on - improving healthcare, creating better
jobs, ameliorating access to broadband internet.
"It really has just amplified and co-signed what I was already
talking about with voters," such as the importance of agriculture
and expanding Medicaid, said Alabama's Adia McClellan-Winfrey, a
psychologist and chair of the Talladega County Democratic Party.
Ohio candidate Desiree Tims returned home in 2019 after a stint in
Washington, D.C. as a congressional aide and White House intern,
intending to work at a law firm and pay down her student loan debt.
But she decided to run after watching people come together to bag
clothes, share food and provide shelter following a rash of
tornadoes that tore across the state, with little support from the
federal government.
"After coming back from Washington, D.C., what I saw was the
community doing the work, but their tax dollars not working for
them," Tims said.
Kimberly Walker, a veteran and former corrections officer from
Florida running for Congress, says the solution to that discrepancy
is clear.
"We need to have more people, average, everyday American citizens
who are there fighting for average, everyday American citizens," she
said.
(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Heather Timmons and Diane
Craft)
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