Doing it For Themselves: Women of Color and the 2020 Congressional Elections

Abstract
This article provides an overview of the historic levels of representation achieved by women of color in the U.S. Congress in the wake of the 2020 election. Drawing on existing literature, we explore how these gains were possible and whether these historic numbers are an anomaly or something that will continue in future elections. We examine the history of women of color as voters and mobilizers, the barriers to political representation that women of color face, the role of political parties in the election of women of color, and the election of women of color in 2020. The efforts to exclude women of color from the political sphere in the United States have forced them to organize themselves and their resources in ways that will likely facilitate further electoral gains despite the damage done by Congress’ failure to be a representative body.

Special thanks to Professor Laurel Elder of Hartwick College for her comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Introduction

The 2020 elections were groundbreaking on many fronts. The Biden-Harris ticket successfully defeated an incumbent president, and the Democrats eked out a very tight margin of control in the U.S. Senate. One theme that received considerable media attention was the increased diversity among national leaders (Epstein, Medina, & Corasaniti, 2020; Kindelan, 2020; Zaru, 2020; Ruiz-Grossman, 2020; Austin, 2020; Do, 2020; Phillips-Cunningham, 2020; Reingold, Haynie, & Widner, 2020; Seitz-Wald, 2020; Sprunt, 2021; Talton, 2019; Zanona & Ferris, 2021). After all, the election of Vice President Kamala Harris represents a first on many levels because she is the first woman, African American, South Asian American, multiracial person to occupy such a prestigious position. In the U.S. Congress, we also witnessed some amazing gains among women of color in U.S. House and Senate elections. Of the 142 women now serving in the 117th U.S. Congress, 51 are women of color. This represents an increase from the previous 116th U.S. Congress, where women held 126 seats, or 23.6% of total membership (“History of Women,” 2021, p. 2). The 117th Congress includes the first three Korean American women and the first Black women to represent Washington state and Missouri respectively. Women now comprise 27% of the U.S. House of Representatives and 24% of the U.S. Senate.

This article has two goals – the first is to provide a clear overview of the historic levels of representation achieved by women of color in the U.S. Congress in the wake of the 2020 election. Second, this article draws on existing literature to explore how these gains were possible and whether these historic numbers are an anomaly or something that will continue in future elections. In the following sections we address the history of women of color and their unique experience as voters and mobilizers, the barriers to political representation that women of color face, the role of political parties in the election of women of color, and the election of women of color in 2020. The efforts to exclude women of color from the political sphere in the United States have forced them to organize themselves and their resources in ways that will likely facilitate further electoral gains despite the damage done by Congress’ failure to be a representative body.

A Brief History of Women of Color as Candidates & Voters

The United States emerged as a nation steeped in the experience of white, male, property owners who sought to cement their superior position in all aspects of the new democratic government they created. Under the new government, Native Americans were disregarded, as were women, enslaved people, and those who did not own property. In the long march toward universal suffrage, the American democratic system has slowly evolved to include citizenship and voting rights for those originally excluded from full citizenship. The path for women of color has been uniquely complex because their intersectional identities were often used as barriers to full participation. For example, even with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, the restrictions that remained on Black voters in many areas of the country meant that Black women were excluded from participating in elections. Black, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, and other women of color have been subjected to systemic racism, resulting in lasting restrictions on voting rights and low numbers of female BIPOC candidates (“History of Women,” 2021, p. 1).

Women of color, specifically Black women, have always been some of the most active voting rights advocates in the United States. Today they represent one of the most important voting blocs in the nation, frequently casting votes that determine elections at all levels of government. Despite their ongoing and critical role in elections, they have long been overlooked as potential candidates for office (Smith, 2020, p. 1). However, the political gains we observed in the 2020 election are tied to legacy and pathbreaking political leadership that Black women of the past established (“History of Women,” 2021, p. 2).

Black women have been systematically underrepresented but incredibly active, especially during the fight for women’s suffrage. The two main groups that emerged during the fight for suffrage era were the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the American Women’s Suffrage Association (Mayo, 2021, pp. 1). Black women were excluded from these groups but, nonetheless, organized. Black women began a national mobilization effort, joining clubs and organizations and founding the National Black Women’s Club (Mayo, 2021, pp. 2). Some of the important women who led the charge for Black political activism include Sojourner Truth, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Ida B. Wells. Truth, a runaway enslaved person, is now revered as the first Black woman suffragist (Smith, 2020, p. 3). Truth believed that both Black men and women should receive the right to vote, unconditionally, and became famous for her speeches as a preacher, discussing her own intersecting identities and how they not only defined her experience as an American but also elevated her voice and her followers’ voices in the suffrage movement (Smith, 2020, p. 3).

The first Black woman to publish a short story in 1859, Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, was actively involved in suffrage and wrote about other key political issues such as abolition. Harper recognized that her distinct position as an African American and a woman uniquely positioned her as a citizen who faced two levels of subjugation. She wrote that Black women face a “double-burden of racism and sexism” (Smith, 2020, p. 2). Harper was also steadfast with regard to the 15th Amendment, disapproving of white women’s disregard for racial equality. Ida B. Wells, a freedwoman who dedicated her life to journalism and fighting racial and gender inequality, made immense contributions to the suffrage movement (Smith, 2020, p. 2). Wells understood that the ballot would be an “indispensable weapon of defense,” calling it a sacred privilege, but one that should be cherished by all Americans. Wells was also active politically, forming the Alpha Suffrage Club for Black women in Illinois. This club allowed for Black women in severely underrepresented areas to mobilize in Washington D.C. along with Alice Paul and the national suffrage parade. Ignoring the qualms of other white women, including Alice Paul, Wells led her followers and other Black women to the front of the procession, demonstrating that Black women had an equal right to suffrage (Smith, 2020, p. 2).

Although these women pioneered the women’s suffrage movement and cultivated Black power in America, Black women today continue to be obstructed from civic engagement (Carter & Lautier, 2018, p. 1). Social exclusions exist at both the state and federal levels (Carter & Lautier, 2018, p. 1). Because of these barriers, Black women have a nuanced understanding of how to organize, mobilize, and represent themselves and their communities. Black women are not only activists but also social reformers, continuing to build on the legacies left by women who fought for equality in the past.

Despite the many structural barriers to women of color in terms of voting and participating in the political process, there are remarkable examples of their electoral victories. In the 1960s, the nation witnessed the resurgence of the contemporary women’s movement, which proved to be a turning point for women of color in politics (“United States,” 2020, p. 1). In 1964, Representative Patsy T. Mink, a Japanese American and Democrat from Hawaii, was elected to the U.S. Congress. As the first woman of color in Congress, Rep. Mink voted “yes” for the 1965 Voting Rights Act and helped to draft Title IX. Her election to office was a landmark in the women’s movement, as her presence reflected the first sign of a changing landscape for women of color in elective politics. Women organized around civil rights, environmentalism, anti-poverty programs, and other issues. The 1970s were marked by a bipartisan call for increased gender equality, and a record-setting number of women from diverse backgrounds ran for office, including Rep. Yvonne Burke (D-Calif.) who was the first Black woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress from California and Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-Tex.) who was the first Black woman to serve in the Texas State Senate. Although feminists had successfully pressured for legislation that would benefit women in the 1970s, they had fallen short of fundamentally changing the political culture at the time. Finally, in 1992, women gained major wins in congressional representation, increasing the number of women in the U.S. Congress by four percent (“United States,” 2020, p. 1). While most of these women elected to Congress were white, a larger number of working class women were represented. Women from different economic backgrounds began to run for Congress, knowing that they could represent a specific group of historically underrepresented women.

In 1971, the National Women’s Political Caucus was formed to recruit and elect more women. Its founders projected that by 2020, the U.S. Congress would have a 50-50 gender balance, a prediction that proved unattainable. Even though women remain underrepresented in elective office today, they have changed the political climate and opportunity structure in America (“United States,” 2020, p. 1). By 2016, women voters outnumbered male voters by ten million. Women are more likely to show up to the polls and are more likely to register to vote. In fact, Democratic women were able to flip the balance of power in the U.S. Congress by running in record numbers in 2020. In total, 643 women candidates ran in congressional primary elections, including a record number of women of color (“United States,” 2020, p. 2).

When the 2016 presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost the electoral vote, it inspired a generation of women, often overlooked as potential candidates, to run for office. Donald Trump, a person with a track record of degrading and discrediting female adversaries, often attacked women, especially government officials, on social media by calling them radicals and socialists. Shortly after Trump’s victory, women of color organized the Women's March. This event was a worldwide protest the day after the inauguration of former President Trump and was the largest single-day protest in United States history. Social movements like “MeToo” and “Black Lives Matter” also gained momentum and were led mainly by grassroots organizers fighting for civil rights. In a charged political climate and with the historic legacy of political underrepresentation in mind, women ran for office in record numbers and won. Consequently, the 117th U.S. Congress is the most representative of the American population in history (Simien, 2015, pp. 1).

Despite the important victories in 2020 with regard to the election of women of color, more women of color will need to run and win in order to accurately represent the voting population in the United States. Currently, Black women make up 5.7% of the women in the house, and 4.9% of all women in the U.S. Congress, as there are no Black women in the U.S. Senate (“History of Women,” 2021, p.1). Black women make up close to 13% of the current American female population, a clear indication that they remain underrepresented in Congress (“History of Women,” 2021, p. 3). Women of color must remain conscious of the value of their votes and their voices in politics because these aspects of their political participation serve to inspire more women of color to run for office.

Barriers to Entry/Symbolic Empowerment

Women of color have arguably faced the most significant barriers to enter politics. Typically underfunded and continuously underrepresented, women of color have had to overcome a variety of obstacles to claim their position as political leaders. Diverse representatives, known as “historic firsts'' according to Evelyn Simien (2015), have led the way for candidates who aspire to hold political office. These candidates not only serve as important policy makers who bring new issues to the political agenda, but they also represent symbols of inclusion, serving as role models for those who share their background. The symbolic empowerment of women of color in the U.S. Congress demonstrates how the legacy of previous generations has inspired contemporary women of color to run for office. Symbolic representation can also help constituents understand the connection between more diversity in public office and how it can serve to change the political landscape. In this sense, historic firsts not only inspire others to run for office but show voters the value of the substantive policy these leaders may inspire.

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was the first Black woman in Congress and the first Black person to pursue the presidential nomination for a major party in 1972. Chisholm, who saw herself as incapable of running for office as a Black woman, joined local chapters of the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, and the Democratic Party club in Brooklyn. Subsequently, Chisholm ran for and became the second Black person in the New York State Legislature in 1964. In 1968, after the extensive redistricting of her neighborhood, she won a seat in the U.S. Congress. During her seven terms in the U.S. House, Chisholm introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation, co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus (1971), and became the first Black woman to serve on the House Rules Committee (1977). She pursued the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1972, where she was blocked from participating in televised debates. Chisholm entered 12 primaries and won 10% of the delegate vote, a remarkable feat (Little, 2018, p. 1). As a quintessential historic first, Chisholm set the tone for women of color looking to become more involved in politics at the national level. Less than fifty years later, we see the results of her legacy among the women of color serving in the U.S. House. ‘The Squad’ is a case in point.

The Squad is the moniker for a group of women of color who are Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives, initially composed of four women elected during the 2018 House elections. These women – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) (D. NY), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D. MN), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D. MA), and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D. MI) – represent the demographic diversity of the younger political generation. As liberal representatives of the Democratic Party, they advocate for progressive policies such as the Green New Deal, student loan forgiveness, more flexible immigration policies, and other issues that are often ignored by establishment politicians. The Squad contributes to the growing diversity of Congress as Rep. AOC, at age 29, is the youngest woman to ever serve in the U.S. Congress. Rep. Ilhan Omar is the first Somali American, the first naturalized citizen of African birth, one of two Muslim women, along with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and the first woman of color to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Congress (Chambers & Elder, in press, pp. 1). As the congresswomen of the Squad quickly became social media stars, energizing the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, they drew regular condemnation from the Trump administration and many Republicans. All four women secured second terms in the 117th U.S. Congress, with little to no opposition. In fact, the Squad expanded in the 2020 election and now includes Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri.

Symbolic representation is one of the reasons women of color are running for the U.S. Congress at higher rates than ever before, and the Squad has been instrumental in this uptick. Women of color who had not seen themselves in the U.S. Congress are now aware of the possibility that they can represent their own communities. Representatives who look like and have shared experiences with their communities are also seeming to increase civic engagement, which creates a pipeline to running for office. Once a person is paying attention to politics and is seeing the impact that a lawmaker can have, it is harder to look away. A civically engaged person also begins to develop networks that make it easier to run for office (Kindelan, 2020). With the rise of the Squad, there is already a community of representatives of color in Washington who will make the transition easier and create a sense that people of color have a place in Congress. Symbolic representation makes a difference.

The Squad’s 2020 victories and expansion proves that the increasing diversity within the Democratic Party will result in consideration of issues formerly thought of as too liberal by more establishment members of Congress. The Squad are not only influencers but strong advocates for political change. While they are symbolically important, the legislative agenda they advocate for has already influenced the Democratic Party. In many ways, we can view the Squad as a legacy of the historic firsts who preceded them in the U.S. Congress.

Parties
Democratic women were elected in record numbers in the 2020 election, and women of color were the dominant reason for these gains. If women of color were represented in the U.S. Congress at the same rate as white women, there would be 22 fewer women in Congress, and most of the losses would be felt on the Democratic side (Elder, 2020, p. 524). Historically, all Black female congresswomen, other than Mia Love , have been Democrats (Austin, 2020). From an electoral perspective, it is clear that Democrats have an incentive to invest in women of color candidates because they are essential to maintaining the Democratic majority in the U.S. House.

The Democratic Party has not, however, sufficiently supported women of color candidates. Often, the party fails to recruit women of color to run because they do not fit the party’s idea of electability, which tends to be an image of a wealthy white man (Brown & Dowe, 2020, pp. 155). In statewide elections, Black women would greatly benefit from party support in the forms of endorsements and funding (Brown & Dowe, 2020, pp. 157) because winning a majority-white state is generally more difficult than winning a majority-minority district (Lublin, 2018). The reality is that the party’s reliance on Black women voters is happening at the same time as the party is failing to adequately support women of color as candidates or the issues that are important to women of color. In fact, support for the Democratic Party among Black women is on the decline. A survey done by Essence Magazine and the Black Women’s Roundtable in 2020 found that 74% of Black women believe the Democratic Party best represents them, which is down from 85% in 2019 (Brown & Dowe, 2020, pp. 156). Black women do not need the Democratic Party’s support in order to be electorally successful, and they have proven that in election cycles as recent as in 2020 (Brown & Dowe, 2020, pp. 157). The Democratic Party does need Black women, and it needs to start showing up for women of color in a significant way in order to remain electorally viable. With institutional support, women of color candidates have an even higher threshold when it comes to representing majority-white districts as well as winning statewide and national races. Both groups – women of color and the Democratic Party – stand to gain by working together; the party is responsible for facilitating this collaboration because it is currently acting as the barrier.

Republicans in the U.S. Congress have significantly fewer women of color in their ranks than Democrats. There are seven Republican women of color who serve as voting members of Congress or House Delegates versus the 45 Democratic women of color in the 117th Congress (“Women of Color,” 2021). Four of the Republican women of color were elected to a first term in the 117th Congress, indicating that Republicans made substantial gains in the 2020 election (“Women of Color,” 2019). Rep.Yvette Herrell (NM) is the first Republican Native American woman in Congress, Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel (CA) are two of the three first Korean American women to be elected to Congress, and Rep. Stephanie Bice (OK) is the first Iranian American woman elected to Congress (Sprunt, 2021). Despite these gains, “Republican women are particularly unlikely to find elected officials who represent them descriptively or substantively” (Croweder-Meyer & Cooperman, 2018, p. 1211).

The success of Reps. Kim and Steel is specifically the result of investments made by the GOP to diversify (Do, 2020). After being defeated in the House, the Senate, and the Presidency in 2012, the GOP realized their margins with minority groups posed a significant electoral challenge (Easley, 2013). As a result, the GOP launched the Growth and Opportunity Project, which set out to “[review] past practices and also [make] critical recommendations for the future” in eight different areas, one of which being “demographic partners and allies” (“RNC,” 2012). The project allocated $10 million to better connect with minority communities and recruit and support Asian American candidates, and this investment worked in Southern California (Do, 2020).

The GOP has also recently prioritized electing more women to the U.S. Congress (Swers, 2021), which in the past has typically been a Democratic priority. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R. NY) started a leadership PAC in 2018 that focused on recruiting more women, and Rep. Susan Brooks (R. IN), the NRCC recruitment chair in 2020, set her sights on identifying and supporting female candidates (Swers, 2021). Other Republican PACs that focus on supporting female candidates have emerged, but they are not well-funded and do not endorse candidates in a united fashion (Cooperman, 2020). Male Republican leaders have also become involved in these efforts by promoting female candidates and expanding their funding networks to include their campaigns (Swers, 2021).

Democratic organizations, like EMILY’s List, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and Planned Parenthood, that support female candidates are much better known, organized, and funded. In 2019, EMILY’s List announced its endorsements for all Democratic women incumbents in competitive races, sixteen of the eighteen Democratic women challengers in competitive races, and ten of the eleven Democratic women running in competitive open seat districts (Cooperman, 2020). This kind of broad support of women candidates within the Democratic Party by a well-funded organization gives women the support and resources they need to run and win. Democratic women are thus more likely to run because they have this network available to them (Crowder-Meyer & Cooperman, 2018, p. 1215). In addition, the existence of many Democratic PACs that support people of color running for office allows women of color to tap into two different funding streams because of their intersecting identities (Chambers & Elder, in press, pp. 16).

Electing women, especially women of color, has been difficult for the Republicans because of their strong opposition to identity politics (Swers, 2021). The Republican Party is oriented to oppose government intervention to protect identity groups while the Democratic Party seeks to promote rights for identity groups (Crowder-Meyer & Cooperman, 2018, p. 1214). Especially in today’s highly polarized political climate where economic conservatism is less salient, this cultural divide is becoming the central issue separating the parties. Democrats are able to use identity politics to their electoral advantage because “Democrats’ political activities are much more often motivated by candidate sex or gender than those of Republican elites” (Crowder-Meyer & Cooperman, 2018, p. 1220). Because identity is a motivating factor in terms of who Democrats will support, it can be extrapolated that racial identity is an important factor as well (Crowder-Meyer & Cooperman, 2018, p. 1223). Democrats want to actively support women candidates, particularly women of color, because diversity is an important value within the party, but Republicans are more focused on the conservative values of the candidates rather than their identities.

Democratic women also have an incumbency advantage in some elections because the party has invested in them. The best way to increase female representation in the U.S. Congress is to run quality women candidates in open seat elections (Silva & Skulley, 2019, p. 346). More Republican women ran for U.S. House seats in 2020 than ever before, but they were running as challengers (Cooperman, 2020). There were thirteen competitive open seats in 2020, and Republicans were only running women in five of them, while Democratic women ran in ten of those districts (Cooperman, 2020).

Republican women, especially women of color, are not running for the U.S. Congress at anywhere near the same rate as Democratic women. For Democratic women of all backgrounds, the eligibility pool theory holds, meaning that as women make up a larger share of people with high educational and professional attainment, their representation as elected officials will increase; this theory does not hold for Republican women to the same extent (Elder, 2020, p. 525). Republican women of color are being stunted in their party by the lack of targeted, institutional funding and support and the lack of salience of identity politics.

The Republican Party has a lot to gain by electing more women of color to Congress. Democrats are already close to their watermark in terms of coalition building with minority communities, but the party can improve its diversity and potentially gain more seats by increasing institutional backing of women of color primary candidates in majority-white districts where people of color face more difficult races (Lublin, 2018). Republicans, however, have a lot of ground to gain. If the Republican Party puts more emphasis on diversifying its members, powerful caucuses like the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus may no longer be Democratic strongholds (Zanona & Ferris, 2021). Electing more Republican women is also likely to make the party more palatable to suburban women who turned against the party during the Trump era (Swers, 2021). The Republican base can expand into the strong blue coalitions that get Democrats elected, but Republicans will have to follow the Democrats’ lead in prioritizing women of color candidates.

Unique Features of the 2020 Electoral Environment

The 2020 elections represent a record year for women of color in both parties. With a once-in-a-century pandemic that disproportionately killed Black and Brown people looming over the general election paired with a summer of protesting for Black lives, the racial justice movement surely had an impact on voters. The police murders of many Black people, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Elijah McClain mobilized people across the country to march and vote, with over half of Black voters saying their top priority was COVID-19 followed by discrimination and racial justice (Owens, 2020).

The pandemic also resulted in absentee and mail-in voting becoming legal and feasible options for many people, which made voter suppression more difficult. Normal voter suppression tactics such as long lines, ID requirements, and discretionary signature matching were difficult to implement because of the 2020 voting options. Politicians and organizers were also actively publicizing how to vote by mail, so knowledge about voting became more accessible. Black women like Stacey Abrams and LaTosha Brown were organizing in Georgia and across the South through Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter (Phillips-Cunningham, 2020). Black women were getting out the vote. As noted earlier, organizing is not new for Black women, who have consistently been the backbone of the Democratic coalition. Over fifty percent of Black women turned out in 2020 and ninety one percent voted for President Biden and Vice President Harris (Owens, 2020). However, we have entered an era where more Black women are now running for elective office. Many women of color who ran for the U.S. Congress in 2020 and won started out as organizers, so their success follows the legacy of Black female organizing. The Black Lives Matter social movement may lead to more women of color running for office because women have taken leadership roles in this movement and such experiences give them the resources and connections for a successful run for the U.S. Congress. This is clearly an outsider path to Congress rather than the "traditional" path of serving in local, then state office, or working within the Democratic or Republican Party organizations before launching a bid. It seems likely this path from "protest to politics," from social movement activism to running for formal elective office, will continue and may lead to more women of color in the U.S. Congress.

To elect more women of color, H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2021, must be signed into law. Provisions in the bill as passed by the U.S. House include creating a national standard for voter registration, mail-in voting, and early voting as well as nonpartisan redistricting commissions, and it would overhaul campaign finance laws to make them more transparent (Stevenson, 2021). Because “democracy for African-Americans is always reversible, not just in the South but nation-wide” (Kornegay, 2017, p. 14) there must be renewed voter protections so that people of color can vote. Due to the enduring history of racially polarized voting in the United States, guaranteeing the rights of people of color to vote is in-part tied to the future election of candidates of color. Of course, the election of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is an exception since she was elected to represent a majority-white district. Still, the issue of upholding the voting rights of all Americans is inextricably tied to the quality of our democracy. And, having a system where we see a reflection of the American population is an ideal we must aspire to. Even Founding Father John Adams once argued that our elective institutions should be a portrait in miniature of the American people at large (Founders Online, 2002). In this respect, the election of Black women to the U.S. Congress must continue.

Conclusion

Women’s descriptive representation leads to substantive policy representation (Silva & Skulley, 2019, p. 343) because women are most likely to sponsor bills that address women’s interests (Reingold, Haynie, & Widner, 2020). The same is true for people of color; Black legislators are most likely to sponsor bills addressing Black interests, and Latinx legislators are most likely to sponsor bills addressing Latinx interests (Reingold, Haynie, & Widner, 2020). This stems from the unique lived experiences and nuanced understanding of America that representatives bring to their role as policymakers. Thus, female candidates of color are the most likely to address the issues that are most important to female voters of color. Women of color are a driving force behind Democratic organizing, so it follows that they would push the party to back more women of color candidates. 

In providing evidence for the historic gains among women of color in the 2020 congressional elections, this article points to the impact of political trailblazing by women of color in the United States. The accomplishments of BIPOC women who ran in 2020 were certainly influenced by those who came before them, but also because of their personal political experience and willingness to take a chance on elective office. As this article makes clear, the political parties can take very little credit for the victories among women of color in 2020. The opposite is the case – women of color can claim credit for the Democratic victories in 2020 due to their reliable voter turnout and electoral successes. It remains to be seen how the parties, particularly the Democratic Party, will absorb this information and identify ways to better support the candidates they have taken for granted for so many electoral cycles.

Dr. Stephanie Chambers is Professor of Political Science, Trinity College, Hartford, Ct. Annika Davies and Blythe Hastings are her student co-authors.

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