Warnock win unleashes flood of Black candidates

[JoeOtterbein]

Politico

‘This idea that Black candidates can’t win statewide and young candidates can’t win statewide in difficult races was just disproven,’ said a Pennsylvania lawmaker who recently launched a Senate campaign.

By MAYA KING, HOLLY OTTERBEIN and JAMES ARKIN

03/16/2021 12:56 PM EDT

Raphael Warnock’s Senate victory in Georgia has opened the floodgates to a surge of African American Senate candidates, raising the prospect that the 2022 midterm elections could dramatically alter the face of a chamber that is currently 89 percent white.

While it’s too early in the election cycle to know exactly how many Black candidates will run for the Senate, a growing number have either launched formal bids or are seriously considering running in at least a half-dozen states. Many are state legislators or local elected officials who might have been dissuaded from running in the past, or viewed a statewide victory as implausible.

Fueling the burst is an unusually fluid Senate map that already features five open seat races. But prospective candidates and political strategists point to other catalytic factors — foremost among them, Warnock’s upset victory in January in a red, Deep South state that had never elected an African American to the Senate.

“I think this idea that Black candidates can’t win statewide and young candidates can’t win statewide in difficult races was just disproven in Georgia,” said Malcolm Kenyatta, a 30-year-old Black state representative who is running in Pennsylvania. “We have the Senate majority because a young guy and a Black guy helped us take the two seats we needed.”

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more at link

[PortTack]

1. Excellent! Brings all Americans to the political table!!

[OnDoutside]

2. Kenyatta is very assured in the interviews I have watched, though

you'd have to think Fetterman is favourite.

[Indykatie]

3. Without Abrams and Others' Hard Work on Registering and GOTV in GA Would Warnock or Ossoff Have Won?

I'm doubtful. Our state parties need to invest in and do the hard work of registering, engaging, fighting suppression tactics and then getting voters to cast their ballots before our Black and young candidates can win statewide races in Red States or even PA. GA was a perfect storm in so many ways and yet both races were incredibly close in the end.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Good. Bring more good and highly qualified people to the table. As democrats, and Stacey

showing the way in Georgia, we need every single great candidate to run against these gop thugs. Time to remove the Russian gop from our midst. The repug gop must be a 5th movement in the USA...and they used to be so anti communist, etc. What happened to them?

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Malcolm Kenyatta has a very promising future. He is a very impressive young man