» Black Texas Democrats allege party bias against Royce West.
Senatorial campaign committee denies dissuading donors from giving to legislator
WASHINGTON — A group representing some 10,000 black Democrats in Texas says the Democratic establishment here is trying to “cheat” longtime state Sen. Royce West out of a shot at being the state’s first African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate.
It’s an unusual clash between the Democratic establishment and a group of the party’s most steadfast supporters in Texas, who the party will need if it is to have any hope of beating Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in November. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee denies the accusation.
The Texas Coalition of Black Democrats says it has heard from seven donors in Texas that the DSCC, which endorsed former Air Force pilot MJ Hegar early in the primary, has called and told them not to give to West’s campaign. West has represented Dallas in the Legislature for nearly three decades.
The group declined to identify any of the donors it has heard from, but Carroll Robinson, its chairman, said he heard from seven individuals personally.
Robinson said “it’s just a sad thing” that the DSCC would “try to undercut” the campaign of an African American state senator. “It’s the same basic problem we have broadly speaking in America — whenever African Americans have an opportunity to advance, they get undercut. And it’s sad that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is doing it, and I wish they would stop.”
DSCC spokeswoman Lauren Passalacqua responded: “This is a false and unsubstantiated allega
tion.”
West and Hegar emerged from a crowded field of Democrats vying to take on Cornyn in November. The two are locked in a runoff race set for July 14.
The black Democrats coalition wrote a letter Thursday to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, saying “if Black Democrats come to believe the United States Senate primary was rigged against Senator West, it will only hurt MJ Hegar in the general election if she wins the runoff election.”
The DSCC’s endorsement of Hegar in December sparked criticism at the time from Democrats and Republicans alike, who charge that the Senate Democrats passed over a diverse field of candidates with the early endorsement of Hegar.
Nonetheless, the DSCC has endorsed African American candidates in a handful of states this cycle, including Jaime Harrison in South Carolina, the Rev. Raphael Warnock in Georgia and Mike Espy in Mississippi.
West and Hegar emerged from the crowded Democratic primary field earlier this year, Hegar leading the pack with 22 percent of the vote.
West finished with 14.5 percent, drawing more than 143,000 fewer votes than Hegar. Hegar, meanwhile, held a substantial lead over West in a Dallas Morning News-University of Texas at Tyler poll released in May, up 32 percent to West’s 16 percent. That poll showed that more than 40 percent of Democratic primary voters were still undecided.
Hegar led the primary race in fundraising from the jump, raking in more than $3 million by the end of December, the month that the DSCC endorsed her. West has trailed throughout the campaign, bringing in just more than $754,000 by the end of December. Hegar had raised $4.8 million as of the end of March, according to the most recently
available data. West had raised just under $1.4 million.
“With over 42,000 donors, donations from over 190 counties in Texas, over $4.8 million raised, and endorsements from Texas labor unions and other key groups across Texas, MJ proved, many months before the DSCC endorsed in this race, that she is the candidate who has built the Texas-sized, grassroots-powered campaign needed to defeat Sen. Cornyn,” said Amanda Sherman, a campaign spokesperson.
The Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, which has chapters across the state, dates back to 1979, when it was formed because black voters felt that the state party was being “disrespectful and neglectful” of them, Robinson said. He said the group now has a good working relationship with the state party and has never before had problems with the DSCC.
Robinson noted that the runoff is playing out as mass protests after the killing of George Floyd have Democrats in D.C. pushing sweeping policing reform.
“The people who say they believe in racial justice won’t even give a black candidate a fair opportunity to make his case by having enough money to have a campaign to close out a runoff election,” he said.
If elected, West — who is endorsed by the Congressional Black Caucus and Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, the first black woman to serve in the Senate — would be the first black U.S. senator from Texas. There currently are three black U.S. senators — two Democrats and one Republican — and only 10 African-Americans have served in the U.S. Senate to date.
“I’m a Democrat. I want to beat Cornyn in the November election,” Robinson said. “But it will be a bitter pill for me and a lot of black Democrats to swallow going into the fall if we think Royce West was cheated — and I’m using the word cheated — out of an opportunity to be our Senate nominee.”