| As vulnerable House Republicans go along with the Supreme Court’s latest attack on Black voters, recent reporting from The Bulwark makes it clear that Black voters in critical battleground districts across the country are primed to turnout in November and hold Republicans accountable for their attacks at the ballot box.
Read key points from the report below:
The Bulwark: Dems See a Major Black Voter Backlash to SCOTUS
- In the past few weeks, operatives involved in competitive House, Senate, and gubernatorial elections have argued to me that the Republican attack on black rights and representation unleashed by the Supreme Court will powerfully energize their base this midterm cycle. And not just in Southern states that are redrawing congressional lines. The Court’s ruling, Democrats say, could increase black voter turnout enough to clinch narrow elections.
- “It could be a game changer across the country, especially in these marginal districts where candidates win with less than 2 percent of the vote,” said Donna Brazile, the former Democratic National Committee chair.
- The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee provided me with a list of eighteen districts they’re eyeing in which black residents make up between 12 and 33 percent of the voting-age population. Some districts on that list, like North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, are swing seats that Democrats are defending. But others—like Virginia’s 2nd district, Ohio’s 10th, Michigan’s 10th, and North Carolina’s 3rd—are critical pickup opportunities. The DCCC believes that historical turnout among black voters could be the difference in flipping those seats.
- “People are very upset,” said former Rep. Elaine Luria, who is running to take back the seat she once held in Virginia’s 2nd district, adding that the way the Virginia Supreme Court threw out the state’s redistricting referendum only added to the outrage. “This is a district where one in five or four voters are African American. . . . All of this was just a very emotionally charged combination of things, and we’ve certainly been hearing about it everywhere we go.”
- Cornell Belcher, a pollster who worked closely with Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, told me that in a recent nationwide poll he conducted on behalf of the group BlackPAC—which works to turn out black voters for Democrats—81 percent of likely black voters said they were very motivated to participate in the upcoming election. At this same point in June 2024—during a presidential election year wherein voter enthusiasm is almost always higher—Belcher said 76 percent of likely black voters were very motivated to participate.
- “That [high motivation] is not something I typically see at this juncture, especially going into a midterm,” said Belcher. “There’s tremendous potential here: a different kind of turnout and participation if messaged correctly.”
- Last month, the DCCC launched a digital ad campaign in hopes of imparting those historical lessons. The ads highlighted GOP attacks on black voters’ representation and voting rights, while decrying the Trump administration’s “white nationalist agenda” and “Jim Crow 2.0.”
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