The 19th News: For years, Democrats have referred to Black women as the “backbone” of the party
Ahead of Nevada’s First in the West primary, Nevada State Democratic Party Chair Daniele Monroe-Moreno discussed the importance of representation in politics and efforts to engage with Black voters alongside South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain and Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes – a history-making trio, marking the first time that all three early primary states have Black women serving as chair of their respective state Democratic Parties – as President Biden’s and Vice President Harris’ historical investments in Black communities continue to deliver real results for Nevada families.
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The 19th News: For the first time, Black women are leading Democrats in early primary states
[Candice Norwood and Grace Panetta, 02/02/24]
- President Joe Biden faces no serious threat to the Democratic nomination as he seeks a second term. But the Democratic presidential primaries, beginning with South Carolina on Saturday, offer the first real window into his strength with the Black voters who make up his key voting base.
- And for the first time, Black women are leading all three of these Democratic state parties as polls offer warning signs of Biden’s standing among Black voters.
- Christale Spain in South Carolina, Daniele Monroe-Moreno in Nevada and Lavora Barnes in Michigan are all the first Black women to be party chairs in their states — raising money and serving as the Democrats’ public face.
- “I’m a mom and a grandma, and I take my state party position as being like the mom of the Democratic Party for the state,” said Monroe-Moreno, chair of the Nevada Democratic Party and speaker pro tempore of the Nevada Assembly.
- “It’s about unifying this party to get behind the people that we have currently in office to make sure we get them reelected. And it’s also seeking and mentoring and training young Democrats to come and take those seats behind us. I’m the first, I don’t want to be the last,” she said.
- For years, Democrats have referred to Black women as the “backbone” of the party — a designation celebrating their decades of party support and their community leadership fighting for equitable laws, registering voters or providing civic education.
- “Black women are resilient. We just have the ingenuity to make things happen and to make it look easy,” Nadia Brown, a professor of government and director of women’s and gender studies at Georgetown University, told The 19th last year. “Black women can make $1 out of 15 cents, and the Democratic Party knows that. So there is little incentive for the party to put the investment in when they know that Black women will still turn out.”
- When entering the White House, Biden appeared committed to help shift that dynamic by appointing more Black women to prominent positions of power.
- He selected Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and Black and Asian-American person to serve in the position, as his running mate. He also appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. In total he has appointed 33 Black women to the federal bench.
- Broader representation for Black women has spread to Democratic Party leadership as well. They now serve as state chairs in seven states, including three key battlegrounds: Nevada, Michigan and Georgia. Black women are vice chairs in seven other states.
- Monroe-Moreno took the helm for the Nevada party in March. In addition to being the first Black woman to lead the state party, she was also the first Black woman to chair the Ways and Means Committee in the state assembly. Breaking through these barriers is significant, not only as a Black woman, but as someone who spent her early childhood in foster care, she said.
- “Statistics would tell you that as a foster kid in the foster care system, you probably wouldn’t end up in an elected position, much less running the state party of any state,” Monroe-Moreno said. “I’m elected and serve in the legislature to a community that is not a majority-minority community, but they felt that I was the best person to represent them. So it means a lot to be here.”
- In thinking about their strategy for the 2024 elections, the Black women chairs in South Carolina, Nevada and Michigan said it is important to do away with old approaches to voter engagement that left communities feeling taken advantage of.
- All of the chairs said they were focused on investing in year-round organizing, creating an ongoing dialogue between the party and voters in their states on key issues.
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