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She the People Executive Director Aimee Allison explains how women of color are both running for office and voting in ways that demand to be seen and heard.
Lost amid dire predictions about a Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections is the fact that more women of color were nominated in House primaries than in any year prior.
“Of the 259 women nominated in House primaries this year, 43 percent are women of color — the highest percentage for the demographic in recent cycles,” Politico reports.
And despite battling numerous challenges as candidates and voters (not to mention a rising tide of white supremacist violence), women of color are leading the fight in states like Georgia to preserve voting rights against an onslaught of repressive laws and measures.
But that civic leadership comes at a high price: Women candidates of color are most likely to face misinformation and abuse compared with candidates from other demographic groups, according to a new report by the Center for Democracy & Technology.
That’s a harsh reality that women of color candidates—who live at the intersections of race and gender—are increasingly skilled at navigating, says Aimee Allison. Allison is founder and president of She the People, a national organization aiming to elevate the voice and power of women of color as national political leaders. She spoke with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar about the challenges facing women of color in the 2022 midterm elections—and how they are responding.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Give me a sense of how far women of color have come into the political realm via elected office.
Aimee Allison: Well, I started this work with She the People really in 2016 at the DNC [Democratic National Convention], [where we] held and organized the first luncheon for women of color in Philadelphia. And at that time, women of color as a political bloc were not acknowledged. Black women, Asian American women, Latina, Indigenous, none of us. It was as if the fastest-growing and most critical voting bloc for the Democrats was, you know, absent from consideration about what policies matter, what leadership matters, and what voters matter. And much has changed.
“The Squad,” you know, you have these transformational progressive women of color leaders [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York; Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota; Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan; and Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts], who … won in the midterms in 2018, build[ing] political capital.
We continue to build political capital with Vice President [Kamala Harris] in the White House and making that argument. And in 2022, we have a historic number of women of color running for office in the primaries. So that’s where we’ve come.
We basically have told the rest of the country and the political establishment of the [Democratic] Party, “Look, we’re here. We will be seen, we’ll be heard, and, most importantly, we’re standing for a set of values and policies that are important. You can’t win without us.”
The Republicans now are starting to understand that. The Democrats are starting to understand that. But the political capital that we’re building is just beginning. Having [or] winning certain select seats is very important.
And this year, the key Senate races, House races, and actually statewide attorney general, secretary of state races, all are indications of the political power that women of color have. But the truth of the matter is that women of color who ran in the primaries this year, most of them did not make it to the general [election].
And so, we still have a problem with the ecosystem of the political establishment. You know, a lot of people think that politics is about voting, and that’s a very important part of it. It isn’t just about getting our people elected to office. It’s about the consultants. It’s about what data—there’s not a lot of data about women of color—[gets collected]. It’s about which candidates donors back very early on. And the fact of the matter is that [for] women of color right now, we are still on the path to building the political power that we need in order to be seen and heard and take our rightful place.
So, there’s been progress, but we’re still on the path. [It’s] not enough, and it’s just been a few years.
Kolhatkar: How much support is the Democratic Party’s machinery—because the majority of the women of color who are running for office tend to run as Democrats—how much support do they get from the machinery of the party? How much support are they getting from President Biden coming to stump for them?
Allison: I would use two concrete examples—Congresswoman Val Demings, who’s running for Senate in Florida, and Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, who’s running for Senate in North Carolina—two Black women, with very impressive records in public service, sailed through their primary [elections] in large part because the political establishment backed them, and in the case of Cheri Beasley, cleared the field, so that they did not have to run a competitive primary. In that sense, it was very positive.
What we heard time and time again during the process of the primary to the general [election], is that the groups on the ground who are responsible for engaging particularly voters of color, speaking to voters, registering voters, and turning out voters were underfunded. And that coming to key voters, in the case of both North Carolina and Florida, it is not that you can go to voters of color or women of color in the last six weeks and expect to win—not in a couple of Southern states in which there’s never been a Black woman and a Democrat winning statewide in many, many years.
So, in that sense, the campaign infrastructure was underfunded. And it was underfunded for many, many months, critical months. Because, you know, the mistake of the political establishment is to look at women of color—let’s just say Black women as a subset of the women of color vote—is to look at that group as a “turnout universe,” not a “persuasion universe.”
And that might sound like a lot of gobbledygook, but actually what that really means is investing in, making the case, to this set of voters who are so critical, and making that case early. Not just [saying], “Hey, we’re gonna assume we have their vote. We don’t have to engage them, listen to them. And all we have to do is get them a vote plan.” So, it’s a very different way of looking at this group of voters.
Having said that … in these critical senate races that I’ve been talking about, we need deeper and longer-lasting investment, particularly in on-the-ground organizing, as well as [in] turnout efforts, a few weeks before the election. Both things are needed.
Kolhatkar: So, it sounds like you’re saying that the Democratic Party has had to contend with the fact that women of color are no longer content to be told how to vote; they want to represent themselves and not be represented by white women or white men?
Allison: First of all, we’re recognizing that we’re a power bloc. The recognition is growing year over year. We’re not waiting for someone to bless us or, you know, tap us. We’re expending political capital right now to run. And I think that’s why so many women of color are running very, very strong campaigns in this moment, where, you know, the rise of Republicans and the amount of dark money that’s fueling attacks is huge and focused squarely on women of color. [It] just shows the readiness of this particular group of candidates to run, and to run competitively, to win.
I think what we need to contend with is, we have political capital, but the assumption is [that] women of color are going to vote for the Democrats. You’re right, most women of color who run, run as Dems. But in my home state of California, women of color who come of age to vote, a third of them are “decline to state” [and] don’t identify with parties.
And, in fact, She the People as an organization did a first-of-its-kind survey: 10 state listening sessions where we gathered women of color and we listened. And what we heard was pretty clear: that women of color do not like being taken for granted. That we, in fact, are a persuasion universe. That many of the ways that already-elected leaders and candidates are speaking about the issues don’t reach women of color. And that there’s not enough investment in our leadership, in our vision, yet. So, we did hear those things.
So, although the party looks at white voters, particularly white women, as swing voters that they have to win over—“Those are the swing voters that we have to both attract and catch their attention, and respond to, and pay homage to and speak their language,”—that is used in terms of white voters and white women in particular, not women of color. But the fact of the matter is that women of color are a group of voters who you can’t assume we’ll vote for any particular party or candidate.
In fact, what we heard in state after state—and we went from California, Nevada, Texas, Georgia, Ohio—we went to 10 states that were considered battleground [states] in 2022, and we heard, “It’s not the race and gender of the leader. It’s the policies. Do we trust them to fight for our interests?”
And that’s the indication that we are maturing as a movement into a very sophisticated group of voters who are here to stay.
Kolhatkar: What are some of the main issues that you are seeing are prompting women of color to the polls? Of course, we had the overturning of abortion rights earlier this year, which Democrats were expecting was going to drive pro-abortion, pro-choice voters to the polls. And then we have the drumbeat of how the economy is failing, and it’s true that wages are not keeping up with inflation, inflation is a real concern. Are you seeing those two issues among others that are driving women of color voters to the polls?
Allison: There were three top issues that we uncovered in our national surveys that went alongside our listening sessions. The top one was pocketbook issues: the cost of rent, the cost of food, the cost of child care, the cost of living.
And that went right alongside the concern about reproductive justice. And what we discovered for women of color is that there isn’t a narrow understanding about abortion rights that’s not in and of itself a motivating issue, understood really through the economy. So, people will say, the Dobbs [abortion] issue is a top concern, but abortion is understood as … a right for women and women of color to decide when and if to have children, [which] is an economic issue.
They talked a lot about Black maternal health and access to health care. They talked a lot about the cost of daycare, child care. They talked a lot about the cost of education, along with these pocketbook issues. So, really, top of mind, going into the midterms, is that combination of the justice issues as it affects the economic, safety, and security [issues].
And then talking about safety, the other top issue was gun safety. Women of color were very clear that one of their top concerns that they want to see addressed by elected [officials] in this period is, you know, the safety of themselves and their community … and their children [from gun violence]. It continues to be a top issue.
Kolhatkar: Let’s talk about threats facing women of color candidates as well as women of color voters. I mentioned a study where women of color candidates were more likely to face misinformation and abuse. We’ve seen representatives like Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being the targets of attacks. And then, for voters, we’re seeing voter suppression in state after state; in states like Georgia, where Stacey Abrams is running competitively against Brian Kemp, trying for the second time to oust him. So, are those two threats—candidates facing violence and vote suppression facing voters—are those issues that concern you as well?
Allison: Yeah, I think there’s lots of examples in the days that are leading up to the election to point to. There are higher rates, as you said, of online abuse, threats, mis- and disinformation, and attack ads that are being aired constantly that play up racist themes and evoke racist tropes.
Here’s an example: Our Congressional candidate in Akron, Ohio, Ohio-13, Emilia Sykes, in a seat that could have been pretty comfortably Democratic, now has seen in the last three weeks over $10 million dollars of “dark money” that’s been poured into a very small media market, TV ads, attacking her, calling her “soft on crime,” which is using some racist tropes.
And some of these attack ads, honestly, some of them are to motivate their Trump base, because she’s running against a Trump-endorsed candidate, and some are to make people who would normally go out to vote feel disaffected and attack the motivation.
And I think you see some other races in other states, [like] Rochelle Garza, [who] is running for attorney general [in Texas]. Rochelle Garza is polling the highest of any Democrat that’s running statewide in Texas. Attorney general is key, because the Republican-dominated state legislature and the governor have actually passed some of the most restrictive and punishing anti-abortion laws, and the attorney general could [on] day one refuse to prosecute women who have had an abortion.
So, it’s a very, very important race. The attack ads and the mischaracterizations of Garza are significant. And she’s a very, very important candidate and someone who we believe has the best chance of flipping Texas blue this cycle.
Kolhatkar: In terms of voter suppression, let’s hone in on the Stacey Abrams–Brian Kemp race for governor in Georgia. I know that’s a race that you’re thinking a lot about. In 2018, Stacey Abrams lost to Brian Kemp, who, as secretary of state and candidate for governor, appeared to have done everything he could to rig the election and has done everything he can to suppress voting. (We’re also seeing an important senate race there—not involving women of color but men of color—Herschel Walker versus Raphael Warnock.) How do you foresee the Stacey Abrams–Brian Kemp rematch? Is her popularity enough to overcome the efforts that Kemp is making to seemingly cheat his way back into power today?
Allison: No, he is cheating. I mean we need to call it for it what it is. He’s doing everything he can with the infrastructure that he has laid out to prevent the idea of “one person, one vote” in Georgia to discourage voting, and he’s backed by so much dark money.
We talked about Texas, we talked about Ohio, but, you know, I was in Atlanta a couple weeks ago, and … every 30 seconds, there was an attack ad against Stacey Abrams, and that’s the environment. Plus, voter suppression, which you’ve mentioned. The difference between her run in 2018 and her run now is that Stacey Abrams and so many organizers and leaders in the state of Georgia have set up an infrastructure that focuses on turning out a multiracial base.
Stacey Abrams always told us that the old Democratic playbook of looking in the big cities, that is not the way to overcome voter suppression. We need overwhelming turnout, and so she, through New Georgia Project, through Fair Fight, which is an organization she founded to defend voting rights, that infrastructure is making a difference now.
How do we know? We pulled the numbers of early vot[ing]. Now, early vot[ing] started a few days ago in Georgia, and if we look at women of color—let’s just look at Black women—Black women are 18% of the registered voting population, and they were 21% of those who voted the first week. [This] means there’s a surge.
So, if you read, hey, there’s a Republican surge in voting, you know that isn’t true in Georgia. There’s a Black women’s voting surge, which speaks very, very highly of the infrastructure that’s been built over years to make sure that people can vote and gives us some hope. That this is the way that we, with all of the other challenges, and protections, and education, and engagement, and voter turnout, that actually we’ve seen indications that in Georgia, it’s working.
So, you know, I’m not gonna make any predictions, but I am going to say it feels like a whole new day. It’s a whole new election, and Stacey Abrams’ campaign is ready in a way that is even a higher level of readiness to face Brian Kemp and all his dark money attacks. So, I’m feeling really positive about that.
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Sonali Kolhatkar
is currently the racial justice editor at YES! Media and a writing fellow with Independent Media Institute. She was previously a weekly columnist for Truthdig.com. She is also the host and creator of Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. Sonali won First Place at the Los Angeles Press Club Annual Awards for Best Election Commentary in 2016. She also won numerous awards including Best TV Anchor from the LA Press Club and has also been nominated as Best Radio Anchor 4 years in a row. She is the author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, and the co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission. Her forthcoming book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights, 2023). She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. She reflects on her professional path in her 2014 TEDx talk, “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host.” She can be reached at sonalikolhatkar.com |
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