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In 2018 and 2020, women of color—voters, organizers, and political strategists—were key to securing victories in purple states and ultimately flipping the Senate in favor of the Democrats. In 2022, they're poised to transfer their political capital into a shot at governance, with more women of color running for office than in any previous election. But despite what they've built, these candidates are also facing extraordinary hurdles, often without sufficient support from the Democratic Party.
A recent report showed that Black and Latina candidates have less cash on hand for federal races than their white counterparts. Ahead of the midterms this year, white women have on average over twice as much cash on hand as Black women running for federal office. Women of color also lag far behind their male counterparts. In Texas, attorney general candidate Rochelle Garza is running the most competitive statewide race in Texas, yet she remains in Beto O'Rourke's shadow. In his bid for Texas governor, O'Rourke has pulled in over $25 million in Q3 compared to Garza's $1.6 million. As O'Rourke joins celebrities like Harry Styles in the limelight, Garza is battling low name recognition—an issue too many women of color candidates face as a direct result of insufficient funding, resources, and support.
Less than a week out from the midterms, we're also seeing the typical Republican fear mongering we've come to expect this close to Election Day. Women of color candidates face the worst of it, and are often left to fend for themselves. Emilia Sykes—a Black woman running for the House seat in Ohio's 13th district—is fighting an onslaught of racist political ads that distort her positions.
Faced with a disinformation campaign led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, Sykes has been left to fend off lies about her record, including that she has pushed for the release of "dangerous criminals'' throughout the state. Sykes has been painted as an extreme "soft-on-crime" liberal who cares more about accused offenders than the community at large. Despite a lack of early support from fellow Democrats—including higher profile Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan who depends on Black women to power a statewide win—Sykes has maintained her resolve in her race, which remains a toss-up.
In North Carolina, Senate candidate Cheri Beasley has run an extremely effective campaign that has her within the margin of error for winning a Senate seat and becoming just the third Black woman in U.S. history to serve as a U.S. Senator. FiveThirtyEight's latest tracking poll showed her within 2 percentage points of her opponent. And though Democrats are now sending money her way, it may be too little too late, with initial investments in an otherwise promising race lagging far behind what it would take to push Beasley over the finish line. With her race essentially deemed a toss-up, the party has been focusing resources on races in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin instead.
Women of color running for office across the country were originally women of color voters who delivered victories just a few short years ago, and have long had a hand in determining elections. Many of their campaigns were born out of a sense of frustration at what they see as a lack of concern for the issues that matter most to them. Even as candidates, they're facing some of the same obstacles they felt as voters: staving off a red wave that would move the country dangerously to the right and destabilize our democracy, but doing so without adequate resources, financial support, or time commitments from the party they've been loyal to. Their races are more competitive than they should be, and face the added burden of staving off racist attacks and running hypercompetent campaigns on a dime.
Black women need more than platitudes. Cheri Beasley, Emilia Sykes, Rochelle Garza, Val Demings and the other women of color on ballots across the country need robust support from the Democratic Party in the form of financial support, ad buys, and forceful condemnations of racist and inaccurate disinformation campaigns. It's high time for the Democratic Party to step up and invest time, money, and resources to get women of color elected across the country.
Aimee Allison is founder and president of She the People, a national network of women of color in politics. She is a columnist for Newsweek.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own.
