As Cheri Beasley and Val Demings run competitive Senate campaigns in North Carolina and Florida, some Black female Democrats say party leaders are leaving them to fend for themselves.
-
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have “>10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Give this articleGive this articleGive this article
Representative Val Demings has put up a strong challenge to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a state that has tilted toward Republicans in recent years.
As prominent Black women struggle for campaign cash in the final legs of their Democratic bids for the Senate, Black female politicians in the party say its leadership is leaving viable, pathbreaking candidates to fend for themselves in winnable races throughout the Southeast.
Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee in North Carolina, and Representative Val Demings, Senator Marco Rubio’s challenger in Florida, have both won praise as excellent candidates who are hanging tough in difficult states.
But supporters say they have received far too little backing from Washington Democrats for their efforts.
The Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC, a group affiliated with the party’s leadership, had spent $7.2 million against Ms. Beasley’s Republican opponent, Representative Ted Budd, as of Thursday, ranking him sixth on the group’s target list. The top target, Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, has had more than $25 million spent against him.
At the same time, Republicans’ counterpart group, the Senate Leadership Fund, had blitzed Ms. Beasley with $33.8 million in spending, second only to the amount spent in Pennsylvania against John Fetterman, the Democrat.
As for Ms. Demings, neither Senate Democrats’ super PAC nor their official campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, had spent much of anything in the last reports to the Federal Election Commission.
“The Black women, here and in Florida, the emphasis hasn’t been on them,” Representative Alma Adams, Democrat of North Carolina, said of Ms. Beasley and Ms. Demings. “We shouldn’t be forgotten in this process.”
Democrats say the figures undercount their support, at least for Ms. Beasley, a former State Supreme Court justice, and they pushed back on the criticism.
“Senate Democrats are backing one of the most diverse classes of candidates in history, and we are supporting them through robust investments in organizing, advertising, campaign infrastructure and direct financial contributions,” said Jessica Knight Henry, deputy executive director and chief diversity and inclusion officer at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “We know that candidates of color and especially Black women are competitive at the highest level.”
In October, the Senate Majority PAC has rushed money into North Carolina, pushing television ad spending to more than $15 million by the end of next week and total spending above $22 million. The D.S.C.C.’s total contributions do not show up in official statistics because they have come through the bundling of individual contributions and joint fund-raisers, aides said.
The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.
- Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.
- Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.
- G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.
- Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, did his part individually, transferring $1 million each to Ms. Demings and Ms. Beasley.
ImageCheri Beasley, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice, is in a close race against Representative Ted Budd, a Republican.Credit…Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times
In all, Republican groups have spent $40 million in the state against $33 million from Democrats. Ms. Beasley, however, has been able to buy more airtime than Mr. Budd because her fund-raising has been robust, and candidates receive ad rates that are cheaper than the rates paid by super PACs.
But Republicans are rushing money in as well. The Senate Leadership Fund has reserved $27.6 million in airtime for the last two weeks of the campaign, nearly doubling its spending so far.
How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.
Learn more about our process.
For Senate Democrats’ official arms, stretched thin by the huge spending of their Republican counterparts, this year’s campaign has been defined by tough choices.
The first priority has been to save the party’s incumbents: Senators Raphael Warnock in Georgia, Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, Mark Kelly in Arizona and Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire. The next priority was what Democrats in Washington saw as the Republican seat most likely to flip, that of the retiring Senator Patrick J. Toomey in Pennsylvania. Next was the Senate race in Wisconsin, a state that President Biden won two years ago.
Beyond that, seats considered long shots at best — in states won by former President Donald J. Trump — were sent to the bottom: Florida and Ohio. Though Ms. Demings and the Democratic nominee in Ohio, Representative Tim Ryan, have run what Washington Democrats acknowledge to be remarkably effective campaigns, they have been left largely to their own devices.
Democrats have spent big to save one deeply endangered Black female incumbent, Representative Jahana Hayes of Connecticut, and to help one Black female candidate contending for an open seat in Ohio, Emilia Sykes.
The House Majority PAC, the outside group tied to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has spent $2.5 million for Ms. Hayes and against her opponent, George S. Logan. Spending for Ms. Sykes and against her opponent, Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, has been even higher, $2.9 million. A much smaller sum, about $200,000, has been spent to lift Jackie Gordon, a Black female Democrat, in a long-shot challenge to Representative Andrew R. Garbarino on Long Island, in New York.
But other Black women in Congress are in safe districts and are not in need of rescuing. Other Black female incumbents, such as Representatives Lauren Underwood of Illinois and Lucy McBath of Georgia, found themselves in newly drawn districts that are now much more Democratic.
It is in Democratic races for the Senate — where only two Black women have served in the nation’s history — that discontent is most prevalent, especially among Black female House members who serve alongside Ms. Demings and saw her prove herself in the impeachments of Mr. Trump.
“There’s much more they can do, and they should do, and they should have done much earlier,” said Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California.
Ms. Lee said Black women had long had higher hurdles to clear before the Democratic Party extended help in campaigns. When she first explored running for the California State Assembly in 1989, she said, party officials told her she had to raise $50,000 in a week to prove her viability. She did, but she faced the same tests when she ran for State Senate, and then for the U.S. House.
Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Democrat of Texas, said Black lawmakers had leaned on the Congressional Black Caucus’s political action committee because of the failings of broad-based Democratic support groups.
“I’ve never known the party to do much for minority candidates,” she said.
Quentin James, the president and co-founder of The Collective PAC, which works to elect Black Democrats, suggested that Stacey Abrams, a Black woman running for governor of Georgia, had also not received enough help. He, like others, brought up the fact that only two Black women had ever been elected to the Senate, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and Kamala Harris of California.
“These Black women are literally the most impressive candidates to run for governor or Senate since, you know, Moseley Braun, since Senator Harris,” he said. “That short list of people is short for a reason — because these women are tested and they’re tremendous candidates. But in my opinion, I don’t know if the party infrastructure has done enough to support these women.”
ImageStacey Abrams is challenging Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times
To be sure, Ms. Demings, Ms. Beasley and Ms. Abrams have done a lot to support themselves. As of Sept. 30, Ms. Demings had raised $65.5 million, well more than Mr. Rubio’s $44.5 million, according to Federal Election Commission records. Ms. Beasley’s $29.4 million was nearly triple Mr. Budd’s $11.1 million.
But in states like Florida, North Carolina and Georgia, that might not be enough. Ms. Demings is well known in her Orlando House district, but she has had the unenviable task of competing against an incumbent senator who has been a statewide figure for 15 years. Establishing her own identity beyond Orlando and taking Mr. Rubio down a few pegs was always going to be extremely expensive in a state as large as Florida.
North Carolina has for years broken Democratic hearts, with numerous presidential and Senate candidates coming close but losing to Republicans in the end. With deep-pocketed conservative groups like the Club for Growth spending freely on Mr. Budd’s behalf, Ms. Beasley needs all the help she can get.
“She would be the first Black woman from North Carolina to serve in the Senate,” Ms. Adams said. “She’s a problem solver, she’s intelligent, and I don’t think she’s getting the kind of support from the national Democrats that she deserves.”
The Beasley and Demings campaigns declined to comment, as did the Senate Majority PAC.
Democrats in Washington said they would have liked to have spent more, not only in Florida and North Carolina but also in Ohio, and they bristled at the notion that the race of candidates had anything to do with their decisions.
Maya King contributed reporting.
Source: nytimes.com
