Warren Reaches Out to Black Women With a Plea for Unity
Warren Reaches Out to Black Women With a Plea for Unity
(Bloomberg) -- Senator Elizabeth Warren, trying to diversify her support, told an audience at a historically black university in Atlanta about the travails of black women fighting for equality since the Civil War and how her policies would address the scars of that past.
Warren took the stage at Clark Atlanta University beside Representative Ayanna Pressley, an African American from Warren’s home state of Massachusetts who she introduced as her “sister warrior.” Members of the audience were waving “Black Women with Warren” placards that had been handed out by the campaign.
“As a white woman, I will never fully understand the discrimination, pain, and harm that black Americans have experienced just because of the color of their skin,” she said. “I’m here to make a commitment: When I am president of the United States, the lessons of black history will not be lost. Those lessons will live in every part of my presidency – and I will ask you to hold me accountable for that promise every single day.”
Warren made a plea for unity through the story of a group of black Atlanta washerwomen in the early 1880s who went on strike to protest their mistreatment and low wages as recently freed slaves. They were joined by white washerwomen who also demanded higher pay, she said, and the movement that began with the “20 black washerwomen quickly grew to more than 3,000 black and white women.”
The women ended up winning their fight despite threats of dismissal, eviction from their homes and arrest. The lesson, Warren concluded, is that “when we come together, we can all move forward.”
Since 1992, no Democrat has won the party’s presidential nomination without a majority of the black vote, a constituency that Warren has struggled to connect with. She faces questions about whether she can cobble together a Democratic majority to win the nomination as well as whether her progressive policies would alienate some voters in a general election match-up against President Donald Trump.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who leads in national polls, remains the top choice among black voters.
African American voters have been slow to warm up to any candidates other than Biden, Barack Obama’s former vice president. In the most recent poll of Democrats in South Carolina, a state where black voters make up the majority of the party electorate, Biden held a 20-point lead at 33%, while Warren came in second at 13%.
Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a South Carolina state representative, who hasn’t endorsed any candidate, said Warren’s main challenge with black voters is proving she can defeat Trump.
“People are really looking for a winner, somebody they are convinced will beat Trump,” Cobb-Hunter said. “I’m seeing for the first time more people deciding to keep their powder dry and not jump on board with any campaign or candidate because of this real visceral reaction to Trump being re-elected and what that will mean for communities of color.”
Warren’s strategy to win over black voters is similar to her map to the nomination: Present targeted policy proposals that address problems affecting black communities.
In her speech, on the day after the fifth Democratic debate was held in Atlanta, she detailed plans intended to reduce racial inequality. They include decreasing black maternal mortality rates, assisting entrepreneurs and home-buyers of color, closing private prisons, canceling student debt and increasing financing for traditionally black colleges.
Warren then pitched her 2% wealth tax as the way to pay for these plans.
”African Americans have gotten the short end of the stick generation after generation, but we have a chance to change that, a chance to build an America where that’s no longer true,” she said. “Twenty-twenty is our chance to build a better tomorrow for every American.”
Cobb-Hunter said Warren’s approach may be paying off. “What I’ve seen is a small but steady increase in building support particularly among black women and a part of that rests in the fact that she seems to have given thought beyond talking points to a real plan for how she would change things and how she would govern,” Cobb-Hunter said. “In talking to women in particular, I’ve found that they find that quite refreshing.”
Warren’s speech was interrupted by protesters from a group called the Powerful Parent Network. They object to her plan to end government funding for charter schools. She briefly stopped speaking. Some of the protesters were escorted out, as Pressley took the microphone and asked those remaining to settle down and let the candidate deliver her remarks.
Warren’s support among black voters nationwide has grown in the last three months. In Quinnipiac University national polls, she jumped from 4% support on July 2 to 20% on Oct. 24. Biden’s already sizable support jumped 12 percentage points in that period, while Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator, has dropped 4 percentage points.
The two black candidates who have been in the race for months also are losing support among African-American voters. Senator Kamala Harris of California plunged from 27% to 2%. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey dropped from 5% to 0%.
At Wednesday’s Democratic debate, Harris complained that the 2020 field has “taken for granted the constituencies that have been the backbone of the Democratic Party, and have overlooked those constituencies. They show up when it’s you know, close to election time and show up in a black church and want to get the vote but just haven’t been there before.”
Pete Buttigieg, the front-runner in Iowa, the overwhelmingly white state that holds the first nominating contest of the 2020 campaign, has 0% black support in South Carolina, where he recently spoke at a black church. During the debate, he spoke of his empathy for those who have faced discrimination as someone who has felt marginalized for being gay, and wanting to marry when the law wouldn’t allow it.
--With assistance from Gregory Korte.
To contact the reporter on this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John Harney
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