Governor pressed on replacing Harris

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As California Gov. Gavin Newsom considers his pick to serve out the rest of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ Senate term through 2022 some observers are frustrated with the persistent lack of racial diversity in the Senate and what they view as both parties’ failure to do much about it.

“It’s a false choice and it’s not good for democracy, and it masks the historical exclusion of both communities in the Senate,” said Sonja Diaz, founding director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative at UCLA.

Without Harris, the only Black woman in the Senate, the chamber has two Black senators — Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Tim Scott, R-S.C. — two women of Asian heritage — Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill. — and four people of Hispanic heritage — Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., will join the Senate in January.

That amounts to 9% of the Senate, while roughly 40% of the U.S. population identify as people of color. California is nearly 40% Hispanic and about 6% Black.

The disproportionate whiteness of the chamber isn’t necessarily about too few diverse candidates but about too few diverse candidates who are winning. The South saw its highest number of Black Senate candidates ever this year, but none won races outright. In Georgia, Democrat Raphael Warnock, who is Black, is in a January runoff against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

The only Black woman to be a major party’s nominee for Senate this year — Marquita Bradshaw in Tennessee — was not supported by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Bradshaw, an environmental justice activist, surprised her party by defeating the establishment’s preferred candidate for an open seat, a win she said demonstrated voters’ appetite for a candidate with working-class roots.

But the party committee decided the race wasn’t competitive after a popular former Democratic governor lost in 2018 and because Bradshaw hadn’t raised much money.

She won 35% of the vote against Republican Bill Hagerty. She raised just $1.6 million, less than 1% of what Jaime Harrison, another Black Democrat running for Senate, raised in his long-shot race in South Carolina. He also lost.

Bradshaw said the national party should treat any candidate who wins a primary as viable.

“It is supposed to be ‘blue no matter who,’” Bradshaw said. “But that just did not happen for Tennessee.”

Black women’s representation in the Senate shouldn’t have come down to California, Bradshaw said, and she’s planning to focus on expanding voter education and supporting Black women as they run for office — and not just in presidential election years.

Asked how the party lifts up diverse candidates, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Stewart Boss pointed to those it endorsed in 2020 and the ongoing effort to send Warnock to the Senate. The other candidates were Adrian Perkins in Louisiana, Mike Espy in Mississippi and Paulette Jordan in Idaho, who would have been the first American Indian woman in the Senate. They all lost.

Jesse Hunt, spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, pointed to the GOP’s support for John James for Senate in Michigan, calling him “the type of leader we need in politics.” James lost to Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.

That’s put pressure on Newsom, and those with a stake in his choice are lobbying openly.