Black Democrats emerge as bulwark against socialists
Black Democratic primary voters are influential in shaping the party’s direction, particularly in opposing socialist candidates. Historically, this voting bloc has kept left-wing candidates like Bernie Sanders from securing the Democratic nomination, especially in the 2016 and 2020 primaries. However,current socialist contenders are gaining more momentum and are more racially diverse.
In Michigan, a key race for the Democratic Senate primary involves Rep. Haley Stevens and progressive Abdul el Sayed, with Stevens leading substantially among black voters, supported by endorsements from prominent figures like Barack Obama and the Congressional black Caucus PAC. el Sayed faces challenges gaining support within black communities,partly due to demographic and rally dynamics.
The broader pattern reflects that black voters tend to favor more moderate candidates over socialist or far-left options. historical examples, such as the 2020 South Carolina primary where Joe Biden won decisively among black voters, illustrate this trend.while progressive candidates of color like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believe black voters are not a monolith, the evidence so far suggests that racial and regional dynamics play critical roles in primary races. For the socialist movement within the Democratic Party to succeed, they will need to broaden thier appeal to black voters, especially in diverse states like Michigan and Maine.
Black Democratic primary voters could pump the brakes on their party’s race to socialism.
It’s a role this important Democratic voting bloc has played before, keeping Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) away from the party’s presidential nomination in two consecutive primary campaigns, but this time the socialist candidates have more momentum and are more racially diverse in their own right.
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A key race to watch is the August Democratic primary to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), pitting the spunky Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) against Abdul el Sayed of the party’s Sanders wing.
In a Detroit News-Glengariff poll released earlier this month, Stevens led el Sayed by 46 points among black voters, winning 67% to the upstart progressive’s 21%. Stevens has tightly hugged former President Barack Obama, who remains popular with black voters and Democrats in general. In a past run for governor, el Sayed appeared to take umbrage when he was compared to Obama (the comparisons were meant as a compliment).
While Obama hasn’t actually endorsed in the race, even as he features prominently in a multimillion-dollar pro-Stevens ad campaign, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC has thrown its support behind Stevens. She has tried to return the favor by showing solidarity with black Democratic elected leaders.
“I want to hit the ground running for us, and I want to be that top of the ticket voice to flip congressional seats here in Michigan and make Hakeem Jeffries, my Democratic leader, the first black speaker of the House,” Stevens told the Washington Examiner earlier this month.
El Sayed was panned for drawing a mostly white crowd at a rally in Detroit, a city with one of the highest percentages of black residents in the country.
“I saw a picture that concerned me [from] the rally. I didn’t see a single person that looks like me,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), a Stevens supporter, told Punchbowl News. “That tells me all I need to know.”
Clyburn would know something about this basic political dynamic. In 2020, Sanders appeared to be hurtling toward the Democratic presidential nomination after strong showings in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Putative front-runner Joe Biden ran 16.4 points behind Sanders in Nevada and finished no better than fourth in the other two states.
Then came South Carolina. Clyburn, a Democratic kingmaker, endorsed Biden. This time, Biden bested Bernie by nearly 29 points and carried every county in the state. The primary electorate was 56% black, according to exit polls, and Biden won this group with 61% of the vote. Sanders finished a distant second at 17%, just 4 points ahead of Tom Steyer.
Yet compared to 2016, for Sanders, this represented a modest improvement. The electorate in the South Carolina Democratic primary was 61% black that year. Hillary Clinton destroyed Sanders among the Palmetto State’s black voters 86% to 14%, according to exit polls, an eye-popping 72-point margin.
The pattern continued throughout the South and in other states with a high percentage of black primary voters. Clinton frequently beat Sanders among blacks by margins approaching Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 shellacking of Barry Goldwater, who had voted against the Civil Rights Act earlier that year.
When Sanders invoked his history of 1960s civil rights activism in an attempt to appeal to black voters, the influential Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis, a Clinton supporter and icon of the fight for racial equality, shot back, “I never saw him. I never met him.”
Black Democrats were reluctant adopters of Zohran Mamdani, the socialist mayor of New York City. Mamdani lagged behind in black precincts during the Democratic primary, though black voters swung back to him in the general election.
Maybe that bodes well for el Sayed, who, like Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — and unlike Sanders — is a person of color.
“I think what we’re actually experiencing right now is a more nuanced conversation than to simply treat black people and black voters in this country as a monolith,” Ocasio-Cortez told Punchbowl News after Clyburn’s comments.
But there isn’t much evidence for this proposition yet. A fight over whether South Carolina or Nevada should vote first in the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries is being cast in racial terms as a contest between black and Hispanic influence within the party.
El Sayed’s campaign points to other, mostly Democratic polls that show him ahead overall. His wing of the party has the wind in its sails.
HALEY STEVENS BETS ON BLACK SUPPORT IN MICHIGAN PRIMARY HOMESTRETCH
Fellow progressive Graham Platner won his Democratic primary against the sitting governor in Maine with more than 70% of the vote before dropping out amid sexual assault allegations. Platner is all but certain to be replaced by another Sanders Democrat, and overtly socialist candidates have had several primary victories so far this year.
But Maine, like Sanders’s Vermont, is among the whitest states in the country. The Democrats’ socialist uprising will need to win over black voters to succeed.
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