“The perspectives, lenses, representations, and experiences of Black women from California are desperately needed.”
That’s what California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, who is running for the Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein for 30 years, told a television reporter last month about why people should vote for her in the race.
On Sunday, before that night’s gathering outside a Los Angeles production studio owned by former NBA All-Star Baron Davis, I asked Lee what that meant. Black people make up only about 7 percent of the state’s population.
Shrewdly and true to her political career, she responded: She tried to turn it into her policy. ”
On paper, I think Lee is the perfect candidate. She has a decades-long track record of supporting progressive policies, is a woman of color at a time when women of color have been central to the success of the Democratic Party, and has never been elected to office. He is a talented politician who has never lost.
But polls show she will enter Tuesday’s primary in fourth place. Under California’s open primary election rules, the top two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of party.
One of the keys to political success is timing. It’s that magical moment when a candidate’s experience and talent match the ever-changing appetites of voters. I can’t help but think that Lee’s best time would have been four or five years ago, but of course this Senate seat wasn’t vacant at the time. At the time, Black Lives Matter was at its peak, and the challenges facing Black Americans were top of mind for voters overall.
In 2018, London Breed won a special election to become the first black woman mayor of San Francisco, and LaToya Cantrell became the first female mayor of New Orleans. In 2020, Black progressives Cori Bush and Jamal Bowman were elected to Congress. As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised to put a Black woman on the Supreme Court, and he followed through on that promise when he nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, and of course became the first Black and Asian American woman vice president. I chose Kamala Harris. She as his running mate.
Back in 2019, Lee boasted that his Bay Area neighborhood was “the least safe in America.” But she told me: She added: “I won’t say much now because I know how the Republicans have weaponized it.”
At this time five years ago, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Los Angeles Democrat who was expected to be the No. 1 candidate in Tuesday’s race, was on the House floor to be questioned about his famous report by special counsel Robert Mueller. He was not yet famous as a chair of public hearings. He then led Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial in the Senate.
These roles made Schiff Trump a nemesis that made him a Democratic hero and a fixture on cable news.
At the time, Rep. Katie Porter, another Southern California Democrat who was also scheduled to end her campaign before Lee on Tuesday, was just beginning her legislative career, and Kurt, who was rapping at a whiteboard and lecturing Congressional witnesses, was just beginning her legislative career. He hadn’t become a hero yet.
A few years ago, the war at the forefront of Americans’ minds was probably the war in Afghanistan. Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against the war in 2001, an act of true political courage.
Lee may have had a harder time raising money for his Senate campaign then, but he has struggled this term. The way Lee sees it, race is a factor. “We can’t raise money like white candidates.” In February, she told New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister that some supporters told her, “Barbara, we love you, but Adam Schiff looks like just another senator.” said.
There are approximately 2,000 senators in our country. Of those, only 60 were women, only 12 were Black, and only three were Black women, including LaFonza Butler, the custodian appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom after Feinstein died in September.
This cycle, Lee said he will have to be competitive with low early turnout, especially among young voters and voters of color, who are disillusioned with the entire political structure. I believe.
Around noon on Monday, when I accompanied Ms. Lee to a polling place in the San Fernando Valley, a few blocks from her high school, a poll worker told me that she had gone to vote that morning. He said there were only four or five people there, and that there were many more. There were more people working at polling stations than voters, confirming that the turnout was not in Lee’s favor.
Lee is a true progressive, and has been for decades, long before it was best to call himself one. She has fought for the working class, racial minorities, and the LGBTQ community. She and she have consistently advocated humanitarian positions on foreign policy, not only did she oppose the war that lasted 20 years more than 20 years ago, but now she argues that: Unlike the race’s adversaries, an unconditional ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
It is a tragedy that such an honest person is languishing in the polls. That’s because her current donor and voter base seems out of touch with her success.