Horsford, Democrats stress importance of mobilizing Black vote in fall elections

CHICAGO — U.S. Rep Steven Horsford, D-Nev., was direct when addressing the Democratic National Committee’s Black Caucus during the first day of the Democratic National Convention about the stakes of November’s election.

“When we do our job between now and Election Day, not only will we elect the 47th president of the United States, Kamala Harris — who is a lifetime member of the (Congressional Black Caucus) by the way — but we will also win back the House, taking back the majority,” Horsford said during the Monday meeting.

Horsford, the chairman of Congressional Black Caucus, stressed a key mission for both parties in controlling voter power in Congress to pave the way to get priorities approved.

Democrats need to flip just four seats to take control of the U.S. House, where Republicans hold a 218-213 voting edge in a divided government.

Democrats are in the majority in the U.S. Senate, but only by a slim two-seat margin with 23 seats now held by Democratic incumbents up for election this fall.

Republicans will likely pick up a seat in West Virginia, where Sen. Joe Manchin, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, is retiring, meaning Republicans would need one more seat for the majority. And Republicans are defending 11 seats held by incumbents — all in states former President Donald Trump, who is again the GOP nominee, won in the 2020 race against President Joe Biden.

Horsford joined caucus members, including Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., to echo the sentiments voiced throughout the meeting: Black voters can change the course of November’s election.

An appearance by the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, took attendees by surprise, energizing voters and celebrating community volunteers. He took time to shout out Nevada campaign manager Shelby Wiltz, who helped sign up more than 5,000 volunteers in Southern Nevada and canvassed until she passed out from the heat.

“That’s somebody leaving it all on the field,” Walz said. “That’s somebody that understands we’ve got 78 days to make a generational difference, not in just this country, but in the world.”

Walz also seemingly made fun of himself as he joked about “white politicians coming to Black communities to ask for their votes,” but he noted the guidance Harris has had over the campaign.

“What’s different this time is we have a Black woman that’s going to lead us,” he added. 

Nationally, Black voters have coalesced around Harris’ entry into the presidential race in a way they hadn’t for Biden’s reelection campaign, according to polling.

A New York Times-Siena poll from May found 49% of Black voters supported Biden against Trump and third-party candidates. But the latest Times-Siena poll released Saturday found Harris’ support among Black voters had rocketed to 78% against the same opponents.

“When (Harris’ campaign) was announced, something happened in this country, and people got very happy, and the cloud that was over kind of evaporated,” Waters said during the meeting. “And all of a sudden, first of all, Black women came forward.”

Waters praised the funding efforts in the wake of Harris’ campaign announcement, especially by Black women. Just two days after her campaign announcement, a fundraising Zoom call dubbed “Black Women for Harris” gathered over 40,000 women across the country and was streamed to over 50,000 more.

Harris’ campaign then gathered record-breaking donations through the rest of the month, collecting over $310 million in July.

Speakers during the meeting said voters could do even more to support Harris. During one of the panel events, Stefanie Brown James, the co-founder of the Collective PAC, pointed to statistics of 5 million Black people unregistered to vote, and 3.5 million Black voters who did not vote in recent elections.

“But guess what? The margin of victory by the Biden-Harris campaign in 2020 was 1.8 million in the battleground states. What does that mean? That means Black people make the difference,” she said.

Horsford added that flipping the House majority would be critical to Harris’ success as president.

“We understand that when we uplift Black America, we uplift everybody, because our next president needs partners in Congress who can get the job done,” Horsford said.