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Black Women Are Serious Contenders In Open-Seat Senate Contests

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Senator Tom Carper of Delaware announced on Monday that he would not be seeking re-election in 2024. His departure creates a ripe electoral opportunity for the state’s sole member of the U.S. House–Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester–his former intern and a Democrat who Carper all but endorsed in his remarks. Blunt Rochester, who became the first woman to serve in Congress from Delaware in 2017 and is currently one of 28 Black women members, is now one of the likeliest prospects to ensure that the absence of Black women in the U.S. Senate does not continue into 2025.

No Black woman has served in the U.S. Senate since Vice President Kamala Harris’ departure in January 2021. And Harris, who was the only Black woman senator for four years, was sworn in to the nation’s upper legislative chamber 24 years after the first Black woman entered the U.S. Senate. Together, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and Kamala Harris of California represent the entirety of Black women senators in U.S. history. The 2024 election already appears poised to change that.

At least three prominent Black women politicians have launched or are likely to launch U.S. Senate bids in 2024, all notably in open-seat contests where their party is favored. While the number of Black women candidates for the U.S. Senate has increased significantly over the past two decades, no more than one Black woman has won a major-party nomination for an open-seat Senate contest in any single cycle during the same period. In 2022, former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley was the only Black woman senate nominee competing for an open seat. And unlike the Black women candidates in 2024, Beasley–who did not win her contest–sought to flip the North Carolina seat from Republican to Democrat.

Of course, running in party-favored states increases the importance and often the competitiveness of open-seat primary contests. It can also increase the costs of running and winning, a site where Black women have historically faced inequity due to differential access to monied networks and disparities in giving. Those disparities are sometimes fueled by persistent biases about Black women’s electability statewide, forcing Black women candidates to run dual campaigns that not only prove they are the best person for the job but also that they are capable of winning in what have typically been majority-white electorates. These are just some of the distinct hurdles Black women face in running for high-level office, but they are hurdles that can be cleared.

Representative Barbara Lee, who is running to become the second Black woman senator from California, is undeterred by these doubts. “And even though there are no African American women in the United States Senate,” she said in her announcement video, “We won’t let that stop us either.” In her thirteenth term in the U.S. House, Lee is a well-established and principled legislator with a record of institutional leadership. Prior to her congressional service, Lee served in the California State Legislature for nearly eight years.

Her entry into electoral politics came even earlier, when she worked on the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman and the first Black woman to win delegate votes at a major-party presidential convention. In announcing her senate bid earlier this year, Lee invoked oft-cited advice from Chisholm herself. “Because when you stand on the side of justice, you don’t quit if they don’t give you a seat at the table,” she told an audience of supporters, “You bring a folding chair for everyone.” In more than messaging, Lee is navigating a path not wholly different than Chisholm did more than 50 years before. But the resume and relationships that Lee brings to her contest, as well as the advancement of Black women in U.S. politics since 1972, should aid in challenging the deep-seated biases about who is electable in 2024 at one of the highest levels of U.S. political leadership.

Angela Alsobrooks is seeking to disrupt the status quo as well in her bid for Maryland’s open U.S. Senate seat. A former state’s attorney and current Prince George’s county executive, Alsobrooks would be the first Black woman elected statewide in Maryland and just the second woman senator from the state. Despite previous efforts, no Black woman has won a major-party nomination for U.S. Senate in Maryland. Like Lee, Alsobrooks has acknowledged how her identities set her apart. In her announcement video, she assures voters, “Look, I get it. There aren’t a lot of people like me in the U.S. Senate. People who live like, who think like, and who look like the people they are supposed to represent.” But it is that very difference that she cites as an asset to a U.S. Senate where no Black women currently serve.

While Blunt Rochester has not yet launched a bid for the U.S. Senate, she is well-poised as Delaware’s sole House member to seek the open seat created by her former boss and staunch advocate Senator Tom Carper. Blunt Rochester would be the first woman senator from Delaware. Unlike Lee and Alsobrooks, she will not need to win over a new electorate in her potential senate bid. In a state with just one member of the U.S. House, she has already demonstrated her success in running statewide. With Carper’s endorsement as a potential assist in clearing the field for the Democratic nomination, Blunt Rochester may now be the most favored Black woman senate candidate in 2024.

In a country where Black women are about 8% of the total population, even winning three seats in the 100-member U.S. Senate would still be just a start to resolving their persistent underrepresentation in statewide elective offices. But representation matters in ways that go beyond the numbers. Research shows the substantive impact of Black women officeholders in shaping policy agendas, debates, and outcomes in ways informed by their distinct lived experiences and perspectives. The democratic value of that representation should be among the considerations made in selecting our next class of senators so that Black women can take their rightful seat at the table, no folding chairs necessary.

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