How Kamala Harris Could Boost Three Black Senate Candidates

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When Kamala Harris arrived in the Senate in early 2017, she was just the sixth Black person to win election to the House since Reconstruction and just the second Black woman to get there. Now, the vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee could help a third and fourth black women enter the Senate through elections in Maryland and Delaware. And if the trend continues in the Democrats’ direction, it could even help an eighth black politician reach the Senate through the Texas ballot box.

In the week since President Joe Biden announced he would back away from renomination and shortly endorsed Harris, much has been made about how the former career California prosecutor has re-energized Democrats’ optimism that they could block former President Donald’s return. Trump to power. An impressive $200 million fundraising transport, an aggressive overhaul of Biden’s existing campaign machine and a vibrant reboot have all been packaged in recent days with Harris at the helm. But less appreciated are the negative effects that are only now beginning to come into focus.

In three states, voters must vote by presenting black presidential and Senate candidates on a major party ticket. This has never happened before in the history of our country. When Barack Obama was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008 and 2012, none of the party’s Senate candidates were black.

Both Maryland County Executive Angela Alsobrooks and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware are running to replace a retiring Democratic incumbent. Both races take place in states that tend to send Democrats to Washington, although in this environment nothing is certain. On the one hand, Republican Larry Hogan, the well-regarded former governor of Maryland, remains a potentially popular figure who keeps Democrats in D.C. looking over their shoulder for a surprise last minute rush. And Blunt Rochester of Delaware is seen as a favorite in a state that last sent a Republican to Congress in 2008, but which is far from calming down.

And in Texas — where Harris is scheduled to return Wednesday for her third visit this month — Rep. Colin Allred is trailing by single digits in the polls against Senator Ted Cruz. That race remains tough for Allred — a Democrat hasn’t won the entire state of Texas in decades — but Harris’ campaign isn’t ready to write off a state that has repeatedly been seen as poised to turn purple until votes begin to be counted.

Democratic strategists are careful to note that Senate campaigns these days are so large that they rival the presidential candidacies of decades past. They have their own inertia and gravity, with one current member describing the landmark Senate races as bringing their own weather systems, independent of national trends. Even so, there is almost universal relief that Biden is no longer a low-pressure system parked on the electoral map.

Democrats are running with a near-zero margin of error. They hold 47 seats in the Senate and four other independents generally align with them, resulting in a fragile one-seat majority. One of those lawmakers, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, is leaving Washington at the end of this term, all but ceding his seat to Republicans. On the other side of the Capitol, House Democrats are working to close a net deficit of five seats that he is between them and the majority.

Republicans have uniformly dismissed Harris’s boom as a kind of honeymoon period, a sugar high that will leave Democrats slumping once voters start inspecting Harris’ record. Choosing a running mate in the coming days will subject his decision-making to scrutiny, and his nominating convention in Chicago in two weeks will be very different from the one planned when Biden was still running.

At the forefront, however, will be a trio of potential history-making senators, all of whom could take advantage of Harris’ tailwinds. With an electorate – and a set of donors – already primed to help Harris make history and block Trump, the Senate elections in Maryland, Delaware and perhaps even Texas could also add to the slim list of black people who have won elections for the Senate. Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat from Georgia, sit alongside Senator Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, as winners of the House elections, while Senator Laphonza Butler scored the appointment as a temporary California lawmaker when Sen. Dianne Feinstein retired early.

Of the more than 2,000 men and women who have served in the Senate since the country’s founding, the fact that we are talking about the impact of a list of three black candidates on the reconstruction of history is still worrying. It is a reality that is not lost on any agent working on Senate races this cycle.

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