Uneven Election Success for Black Politicians
When he finished his second term as mayor of New Orleans a decade ago, Marc Morial reached the hard conclusion that his career in elective politics in Louisiana likely had peaked. He was tempted to take the next step, he says, but believed Louisiana voters weren't prepared to elevate a black candidate to the governorship or a Senate seat. Mr. Morial set aside his political ambitions and forged a different career as head of the National Urban League, a civil-rights group.
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Barack Obama broke the ultimate racial barrier when he won the presidency in 2008, picking up a higher percentage of the white vote than had 2004 Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Blacks run major cities and are winning an ever greater share of U.S. House races. But few blacks have been elected to the Senate and gubernatorial offices that are natural springboards to the presidency and vice presidency.
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Over the last four decades, black elected officials in the U.S. jumped from fewer than 1,500 to as many as 11,000, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research organization. But in the nation's history, only three African-Americans have won Senate elections by popular vote: Mr. Obama, Democrat Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and Republican Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. Democrat Cory Booker of New Jersey would be the fourth, should he defeat Republican Steve Lonegan in a special election next month.
One illustration of the challenge black politicians face is that no black member of the House, and no black mayor, has ever run successfully since Reconstruction for the Senate or for governor. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, a civil-rights lawyer and former Justice Department senior official, currently is the nation's lone black governor. Scholars and lawmakers say one reason is that most black House members represent districts that are heavily Democratic and heavily minority, meaning they often don't need to appeal to a diverse set of voters.
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At the same time, concentrating black voters in a few dozen districts has benefited the GOP; if African-Americans, a reliable Democratic constituency, were spread over more districts, they could have made that party's candidates competitive in additional districts. Blacks made their biggest gains ever in the House in 1994—the same year the GOP gained 54 seats and took control of the body for the first time in decades. Last year, Mr. Obama won the national vote by five million votes but won just 209 of the 435 House districts.
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