ABSTRACT
Women of color are running for office in record numbers. The key to securing a progressive future for the country is the New American Majority, the multi-racial coalition of voters that elected Barack Obama. The 2016 election should have taught the Democrats that their old playbook wasn’t working. In the business of electoral politics, how such immense financial resources are spent translates into choices about who gets a call, what words are used to attract voters, who is in the commercials, which candidate gets support, how policies are framed, and which communities are shown political love. In the 2020 Democratic primary, women of color were the most influential voting block: women of color are 47% of Alabama’s Democrats, 31% of California’s, and 33% of Texas’s. In Virginia, the state that secured a Democratic majority in both state houses in 2019, women of color are 21% of Democrats.
