Kamala Harris is likely to be the third African-American in the US Senate (also she'll be the first Indian-American Senator.) That would be the most black Senators in the Senate at once. Robert 'Bobby' Scott of Virginia is hoping to be appointed to the Senate if Tim Kaine becomes Vice President. If that happens he'd be the fourth African-American US Senator in the next Congress. But then his House seat will be open.
[*UPDATE Nov 9, 2016 - I've found two more new African-American candidates for Congress and they have both won: Florida District 10 - Val Demings; Delaware at-large - Lisa Blunt Rochester.]
Background on this post: I updated my list of black members of Congress after the 2014 election. You can see it here. [There were two corrections necessary after I worked on this post. I had totally missed one new black member elected in a 75% white district in New Jersey - Barbara Watson Coleman. I'd also misspelled Marc Veassel in Texas district 33.]
I figured I should get ready for this election to see what changes there might be after this election. Are there other black candidates running in other districts? This is always a bit tricky. As noted above, in 2014 I missed Barbara Watson Coleman, though I did manage to find a few other new ones who were not in mostly black districts. This year I was only able, so far, to come up with one African-American candidate not from a seat already held by an African-American: Kamala Harris is running for US Senate from California. But what about others? If you know of any I missed, please let me know. My email is in the right column above the blog archive.
[Note on racial identity: I'd note that these posts give me some discomfort because of the emphasis on race. This is a socially constructed idea that sometimes becomes tricky. Often identifying a person's race is arbitrary. I try to utilize the identifiers the candidates themselves use, or look for other indicators that someone has self identified as African-American or black. For instance, Wikipedia tells us about Kamala Harris
"Harris is the first female,[4] the first African-American,[5][6][7][8][9] and the first Indian-American attorney general in California.[10][11]"But for the Democratic candidate in Harlem who is expected to replace Charles Rangel, I can only find reference to him being 'Dominican' and 'Latino.'
For political reasons, it is still relevant to have these categories, and groups like the Congressional Black Caucus are significant. But it is also instructive to look at women in Congress, Hispanics/Latinos, and other ethnicities. I'll leave those to others to do. My posts on this subject came about in 2008 when I could not find a clear list of black members of Congress and ended up creating one. That left me with the task of updating the list every election.]
There are some changes we know about already:
New York
Charles Rangel is NOT running for reelection in New York's 13th district.
The Democrat running to replace him is Adriano Espaillat, who would be, if elected, according to Wikipedia, the first Dominican Member of Congress. There's a Republican candidate, Tony Smith, and a Green and a Transparent Government Party candidate.
Florida
Rep. Corrine Brown from Florida's 5th district lost the Democratic primary to state senator Al Lawson after a 24 count federal indictment. This means the loss of one woman member of Congress, but a Lawson win would maintain this as a black seat.
Maryland
Rep. Donna Edwards from Maryland's 4th district ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate seat vacated by Barbara Mikulski. That means one less woman in the Senate (Mikulski) and one less woman in the House (Edwards).
Anthony Brown is the Democratic candidate hoping to take Edwards' House seat. His bio says he was the first African-American student body president in his high school.
Pennsylvania
District 2 Chaka Fattah was convicted on 22 counts of corruption in July 2016 and resigned from Congress. He had already lost in the April primary to Dwight Evans (also African-American.)
California
Democrat Kamala Harris is the front runner in the race for US Senate. Her father, a university professor, was from Jamaica and her mother was a medical doctor from India. Politico touts this race (under California's relatively new all candidate primaries where the top two run in the general regardless of party) as historic. Kamala Harris' opponent is Rep. Loretta Sanchez.
"The election of either would be a historic first: Harris would be the first biracial woman and first Indian-American woman in the U.S. Senate; Sanchez would be the first Latina."I guess since there has already been an African-American woman in the Senate, that aspect wasn't mentioned.
Virginia
Robert Scott from Virginia's 3rd district is hoping to be appointed US Senator if Virginia's current Senator Tim Kaine is elected Vice President of the US.
Below is from my list of black Members of Congress from 2014. Most are from pretty safe districts. I've commented on some of the races and others just have links, mostly to Ballotpedia, which, since 2014, seems to have garnered all the top spots on Google for people looking up congressional elections.
Alabama
District 7 Rep. Terri Sewell is the only candidate in November.
District 13 Rep. Barbara Lee got 90% in the primary (in California now all parties are on one primary ballot and the top two go to the primary.)
California
Rep. Karen Bass in California's 37th district got 80% in the primary and will run against the Democratic runner up Chris Wiggins.
Rep. Maxine Waters in Calfornia's 43rd district got 73% of the vote in the primary against her Republican opponent.
Deleware
[UPDATE Nov 9, 2016: District-at-Large Lisa Bluint Rochester* won]
Florida
District 5 Al Lawson
[UPDATE Nov 9, 2016: District 10 Val Demings (D)* won this seat with 65% of the vote.]
District 20 Alcee Hastings
District 24, Frederica Wilson is running unopposed.
District of Columbia
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Georgia
District 2 Sanford Bishop
District 4 Hank Johnson
District 5 John Lewis
District 13 David Scott running unopposed.
All the Georgia races at one link.
Illinois
District 1 Bobby Rush won the Democratic primary with 73% of the vote and over 100,000 more votes than his Republican opponent got in his primary.
District 2 Robin Kelly also got over 70% in primary.
District 7 Danny Davis is running against long shot Republican Jeffrey Leef whose unusual road to the ballot got Tribune coverage.
Indiana
District 7 Andre Carson got more than twice the votes in his primary than his Republican opponent got in hers.
Louisiana
District 2 Cedric Richmond is running against three other Democrats and a Libertarian. (Louisiana will have a runoff in December if no one gets 50% or more.)
Maryland
District 4 - see above discussion of Donna Edwards running (and losing) in the Democratic primary for US Senate.
District 7 Elija Cummings got 13 times as many votes in the Democratic primary than his opponent got in the Republican primary.
Michigan
District 13 John Conyers
District 14 - after redistricting there were two Democratic Members of Congress in this district. African-American/Bangladeshi Hansen Clarke was pitted against white Gary Peters in 2012. Peters won. In 2014, Peters ran successfully for the US Senate and was replaced in the House by African-American Brenda Lawrence who defeated Clarke in the 2014 Democratic primary.
Minnesota
District 5 Keith Ellison -
Missouri
District 1 Wm. Lacy Clay
District 5 Emanuel Cleaver II
Mississippi
District 2 Bernie Thompson
New Jersey
District 10 Donald Payne It appears there were no opponents in the primaries. 5% of the district is Republican.
District 12 Bonnie Watson Coleman was the first African-American to win this district in 2014. This district is 75% white, but leans Democratic.
Nevada
District 4 Black Rep. Steven Horsford lost his 2014 reelection bid to the Republican Cresent Hardy. The Democratic candidate this year, Ruben Kihuen was born in Mexico and faces Hardy.
New York
District 5 Gregory Meeks
District 8 Hakeem Jeffries Appears unopposed in primary, no Republican candidates, one Conservative.
District 9 Yvette Clarke
District 13 Charles Rangel - retiring - discussed above.
North Carolina
The two black districts in North Carolina (1 and 12) were subject to gerrymandering and ordered to be redrawn.
District 1 G.K. Butterfield -
District 12 Alma Adams (who was first elected in a special election in 2014 to replace Rep. Melvin Watts who was appointed Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.)
Ohio
District 3 Joyce Beatty
District 11 Marcia Fudge
Pennsylvania
District 2 Chaka Fattah was convicted on 22 counts of corruption in July 2016 and resigned from Congress. He had already lost in the April primary to Dwight Evans (also African-American)
South Carolina
District 6 James Clyburn
Texas
District 9 Al Green
District 18 Sheila Jackson Lee
District 23 William Hurd's (R) Democratic opponent Pete Gallego got more votes in his primary than Hurd got in the Republican primary. Gallego won this seat in 2012 but was defeated by Hurd in 2014. This race is rated as a tossup, though the district is 55% Hispanic and Wikipedia says:
"In the Texas House, Gallego served on the board of directors of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), and four terms as Chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC), a caucus of Texas representatives who are of Mexican-American descent or who serve a significant Mexican-American constituency."
District 30 Eddie Bernice Johnson
District 33 Marc Veasey
Utah
District 4 Mia Love (R) The district is 84% white, 2% black, 15% Hispanic. Love is the first Haitian American Member of Congress and the first black Republican woman in Congress.
Virginia
District 3 Bobby Scott - see note above about him hoping to be appointed to US Senate if Kaine becomes vice president.
Virgin Islands
Long-time Virgin Islands delegate to Congress Donna Christensen ran unsuccessfully for governor of the Virgin Islands in 2014. Stacy Plaskett was elected to replace Christiansen as the Virgin Island's delegate to Congress in 2014.
Wisconsin
District 4 Gwen Moore
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments will be reviewed, not for content (except ads), but for style. Comments with personal insults, rambling tirades, and significant repetition will be deleted. Ads disguised as comments, unless closely related to the post and of value to readers (my call) will be deleted. Click here to learn to put links in your comment.