Dems aim to send 2 women of color to D.C.

“It is not just about black women — it is about all the people in our communities.” Jahana Hayes, Democratic nominee for U.S. House

Ayanna Pressley’s upset victory over a 10-term Democratic Congressman in Tuesday’s Massachusetts primary means New England could be sending two black congresswomen to Washington, D.C. this year.

Jahana Hayes, who beat establishment Democrat Mary Glassman in the Connecticut’s 5th District primary, says she would embrace the historic nature of the story more if the focus ever gets beyond race.

“It is not just about black women — it is about all the people in our communities, where the electorate is changing,” said Hayes, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year. “It is not that revolutionary of an idea.”

The mixed feelings are not new for Hayes, who is running for the most conservative and the most competitive Congressional seat in Connecticut.

She has earned national media attention, along with New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as the kind of underdog progressive minority candidate that Democrats are embracing in the 2018 midterm elections.

At the same time, Hayes has been fighting criticism that she’s practicing identity politics since the early days of her campaign, when she said, “If Congress starts to look like us, no one can stop us.”

“‘When Congress starts looking like us’ means all the people in our community — teachers and mothers — people who have felt left out of the political process, people who feel like ‘Government doesn’t include me,’” Hayes said on Wednesday. “That is the message I’m running on.”

So when Pressley addressed a stunned city of Boston after beating Rep. Michael Capuano on Tuesday and decried “constant charges being lobbed against me about identity politics,” Hayes could relate.

“It’s not identity politics because my skin doesn’t come off,” Hayes said on Wednesday. “I don’t think (Pressley) — and I know I didn’t — run on that platform, but everyone else is making that the narrative.”

Race became an issue in part when it was brought up by Hayes’ biggest supporter, Sen. Chris Murphy, who encouraged Hayes to run. Murphy said he encouraged her, in part, because New England needed a woman of color in Congress.

A Democratic strategist said victories by progressive minority candidates are part of a movement that began before president Donald Trump’s election in 2016.

“What we saw in the presidential primary was a movement in the Democratic Party to move to the left with (Vermont Sen.) Bernie

Sanders taking up the mantle,” said Joseph Walkovich, a former state Representative and former Danbury Democratic Party chairman. “Now we see in these Democratic primaries the rebellion against Trump administration policies has activated the more liberal, progressive wing to be more active.”

Wins by Pressley, Hayes and Ocasio-Cortez are part of a larger wave of minority candidates winning key primaries. Black politicians in three states — Florida, Georgia and Maryland — have won the Democratic nomination for governor, for example.

Hayes is running to replace Elizabeth Esty, a three-term Democrat who dropped reelection plans

after admitting she covered up an office abuse scandal.

The GOP is putting its support behind Manny Santos, a former mayor of Meriden, who is running as a Trump Republican.

Hayes said although she draws courage from minority candidates who are winning Democratic primaries and making the party more diverse and progressive, her focus is on the 5th District, which stretches from Bethel to the Massachusetts border.

“I get it how the Connecticut story is backing up against a larger national story, but my focus is on the issues in my district a livable wage, making sure Medicare is a reality, and making sure our students

have equitable access to education,” she said.

Unlike Pressley, who faces no Republican challenger for a district once represented by John F. Kennedy, Hayes has a fight ahead.

Leading Washington, D.C. election forecasters don’t think it will be much of a fight, calling a Democratic victory a “solid” likelihood.

Republicans say those forecasts overlook voter anger at failed Democratic policies in Connecticut.

Hayes and Santos have three debates planned in October, including one in Danbury.

Pressley