Candidates of color
Upstart groups help Florida’s Andrew Gillum and others in quest to make political history
WASHINGTON – Stefanie Brown James first noticed Andrew Gillum 20 years ago when they were student leaders at their colleges, and he hopped a Greyhound bus from Florida to get a firsthand view of student government operations at Howard University in the nation’s capital.
“I remember thinking, ‘Who is this dude?’ ” James said. “‘How do you even have the resources as a college student to travel up to D.C. to check out the student government?’ ”
Now, the political world is paying attention to Gillum after the 39-year-old mayor of Tallahassee stunned the party’s establishment last month by beating former congresswoman Gwen Graham and capturing the Democratic nomination for Florida governor.
Should he prevail in November, Gillum would become the first black governor of Florida, a crucial swing state in the 2020 presidential election.
Behind the scenes of that success stand littleknown but growing political organizations, such as the Collective PAC co-founded by James, that plow money into ads and get-out-the-vote efforts to propel Gillum and others like him – young, liberal and African-American – past their better-financed and better-known contenders.
In Florida, the 2-year-old Collective PAC spent just shy of $2 million to aid Gillum, much of it on radio and TV ads. Other groups joined in, including one run by liberal billionaire Tom Steyer, who spent $1.4 million on Gillum’s behalf.
Vermont’s independent Sen. Bernie Sanders
joined Gillum on the campaign trail last month and helped him raise money. Another group, the Color of Change PAC, knocked on doors and hosted events from Miami to Jacksonville, such as “black women’s brunches,” to talk about the election’s importance.
New records
Candidates of color are breaking records this primary season.
In gubernatorial races alone, nine candidates from racial and ethnic minority groups head into the fall campaign as major-party nominees. Two of them, former Georgia state legislator Stacey Abrams and Paulette Jordan, a former member of the Idaho House of Representatives, would make history if elected as the first African-American female and first Native American governors in the country, respectively.
The United States has had only two black governors: Virginia’s Doug Wilder, elected in 1989, and Massachusetts’ Deval Patrick in 2006.
This year, Democrats have nominated three African-Americans to their state’s top political jobs: Abrams, Gillum and Ben Jealous, the liberal former head of the NAACP who captured the nomination in Maryland.
(U.S. territories, such as the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, long have elected governors of color.)
The 2018 candidates of color face stiff headwinds in their quests. Deep-red Idaho hasn’t elected a Democrat as chief executive in nearly 30 years, and Georgia hasn’t done so in 20 years.
But the activists and donors supporting these candidates say the country’s fast-changing demographics – such as the growing populations of black, Latino and Asian-American voters that stand to make Georgia a majority-minority state within a decade – offer guideposts to victory for their party in November and in the years ahead.
“What this primary season has proved is that this idea that candidates of color are unelectable is a fallacy,” said Steve Phillips, a prominent AfricanAmerican donor and strategist. His 2016 book, “Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority,” encourages Democrats to focus their energy on mobilizing voters of color and liberal, college-educated whites.
“This notion that we should chase the Trump voters in the Midwest is illogical. That focuses on a shrinking sector of the population,” he said. “The Obama formula – inspire people of color and progressive whites to turn out in large numbers – is how you win elections.”
Fall strategy
Phillips, who founded Democracy in Color, is making big investments in voter mobilization.
Phillips-aligned groups back Abrams in Georgia and plan to spend $5 million to $10 million to help turn out 100,000 voters of color who do not regularly cast ballots in the state. He plans to work on voter turnout in Florida and Arizona but still is developing those plans, he said.
Last year, Phillips and his wife, Susan Sandler, the heir to a California savingsand-loan fortune, helped direct $500,000 from Democratic donors around the country to Alabama in last year’s special election to elect Democrat Doug Jones to the Senate.
Exit polls showed 96 percent of black voters backed Jones, helping him defeat Republican Roy Moore to become the first Democratic U.S. senator elected from the state in 25 years.
LaTosha Brown, who co-founded Black Voters Matter Fund to increase black political power in the South, helped turn out those voters in Alabama. She plans a big push in Florida and Georgia this fall, she said/
Brown said the group also plans to expand its The South is Rising bus tour, which stopped last week in Mississippi, Georgia and Florida, to include Maryland, where Jealous is on the ballot.
Phillips said the fall election will be an important test for Democratic Party leaders and liberal donors. “They have candidates who have appeal and the potential to win,” he said, “but will those with the power to move resources move those resources” to minority candidates?
According to the Democratic Nation- al Committee, it has invested $20 million in state parties and campaigns nationally, an unprecedented amount for a nonpresidential year. The total includes millions in grants to hire organizers in base communities. DNC Chair Tom Perez was in Georgia campaigning for Abrams two weeks ago.
The Democratic Governors Association said it contributed $250,000 to the state party in Georgia and will make “significant investments” in Florida.
Costly race
The Florida governors’ race promises to be hard-fought and expensive.
Gillum probably will face tough questions and attack ads about an FBI investigation into Tallahassee city government. His Republican rival, Ron DeSantis, was accused of racism Wednesday for saying that Florida needs to build on its success with Gov. Rick Scott and that voters shouldn’t “monkey this up” by electing Gillum in November.
James, who oversaw African-American voter outreach for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, hopes the newfound fame for the guy she met as a college sophomore will translate into fresh financial resources for the general election.
Music mogul and rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs endorsed Gillum. Actress Gabrielle Union exulted Tuesday night on Twitter after his big win.
“Yessssssss!! I told yall #WeVoteWeWin and we can bring in the change we want to see!!! Congrats #AndrewGillum let’s bring this home!” Union tweeted.
“I love that everyone is congratulating him on social media,” James said. “Now, write us a check.”