Black Democratic candidates across the American South are mobilising Black voters for November’s elections, arguing that a Supreme Court decision and subsequent redistricting drive threaten the representation secured through the Voting Rights Act.
The effort is unfolding in states including Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee and North Carolina, where Democrats are contesting races that Republicans have long regarded as safe. The party faces steep odds, but some contests are showing early signs of becoming more competitive than expected.
Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, remains in a toss-up race for governor of Georgia despite being outspent nine to one by her Republican opponent, businessman Rick Jackson. She has joined Senator Jon Ossoff at rallies aimed at generating enthusiasm among Black voters.
“Discussion around voting and access to the right to vote is energising, period,” Ms Bottoms said in Athens, Georgia, shortly before taking the stage at a joint rally.
In Mississippi, Scott Colom, a state prosecutor and Democratic candidate for the Senate, has attracted an unusual influx of national funding in his campaign against the Republican incumbent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Mr Colom’s nomination to a federal judgeship was blocked by Ms Hyde-Smith during the Biden administration. He has since focused his campaign on his record as a prosecutor, while accusing Republicans of cutting federal healthcare programmes and failing to tackle high prices in one of the country’s poorest states.
In Florida, State Representative Angie Nixon overcame limited support from the party establishment and a fundraising disadvantage to become the Democratic Senate nominee. But the state’s Democratic campaign is complicated by the Republican nomination of Byron Donalds, a Black congressman, for governor.
Several Black Democrats have endorsed Mr Donalds rather than David Jolly, the white former congressman who is the Democratic nominee for the post.
Redistricting puts Southern seats under pressure
Republicans remain confident of holding off Democratic challengers. After the Supreme Court decision, Republican lawmakers pressed ahead with new House maps in parts of the South, saying their boundaries were designed to maximise partisan advantage rather than discriminate on racial grounds.
The redistricting drive targeted seats in Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama where Black voters had helped elect Democratic representatives. In Alabama, lawmakers sought to redraw Representative Shomari Figures’s district, removing many, though not all, of its Black voters.
The seat may nevertheless be within reach for Mr Figures. At least one non-partisan political analyst has shifted the district from safely Republican to leaning Republican.
In North Carolina, another Black Democrat, Representative Don Davis, is still contesting the district that Republican legislators redrew against him. Mississippi lawmakers are also holding a series of hearings that could lead to a map targeting Representative Bennie Thompson.
Democrats are hoping the changes will motivate voters rather than discourage them. At a hearing in Meridian, Mississippi, Sinessa Wilburn, 53, said: “We want to make sure that we have massive turnout. I want an Obama turnout, OK?”
At Big Bethel A.M.E. Church in Atlanta, the Reverend Jay Augustine said some voters were rejecting the idea that redistricting had made their ballots meaningless.
“One can walk away from that and say, ‘Well, my vote’s not going to matter in this election,’” he said. “What I’m seeing on the ground is just the opposite. People are like, ‘No, my vote is going to matter. I’m going to stand tall.’”
Black and white voters turned out at higher rates in Democratic primaries in Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina than they did in 2022, according to an analysis of states where individual-level turnout data was available. The increase was not driven by one racial group, however, and Black voters made up a slightly smaller proportion of the Democratic primary electorate than they did four years earlier.
Democrats are now relying on Black turnout in the general election, while recognising that they cannot win across the South on Black votes alone. Even in 2008, when a record increase in Black voting helped Barack Obama win the White House, all but two Southern states voted Republican. Mr Obama received about 43 per cent of the vote in Mississippi, the state with the highest proportion of Black voters.
Reilly Richardson, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Democrats would “foolishly waste time and money trying to compete in solidly Republican districts where they have zero chance of winning”.
Voting rights message sharpened
Democratic candidates in Tennessee and Louisiana have released polls showing them within striking distance in conservative areas carried by Donald Trump by double-digit margins. In Tennessee, State Representative Justin J. Pearson said Democrats in safer seats should travel south to campaign and provide financial support.
“All Democrats who are in more safe seats should come to the South and help fight and give money,” Mr Pearson said before securing the Democratic nomination in the Ninth Congressional District, which was redrawn to favour a Republican victory but which he is still contesting.
The civil rights movement is a familiar theme in Southern Democratic campaigns, but the Supreme Court decision has given the message fresh force. The Voting Rights Act helped create Black-majority House districts, increasing the number of Black lawmakers in Congress and influencing policy and funding in communities that had otherwise been underserved.
Carolyn Rash Hampton, 78, told Mississippi legislators that removing those protections would mean losing what generations had fought to secure. “Without it, we’re losing what so many people fought for — we would lose that one voice, one vote,” she said.
In Mound Bayou, Mississippi, a Delta town founded by formerly enslaved people, Mr Colom told supporters that lawmakers wanted to choose their representatives for them rather than compete for their votes.
“They don’t want to compete for the voters in the Delta,” he said. “They want to pick y’all’s congressman for y’all.”
Mr Shomari Figures, speaking at Tuskegee University, said the redistricting effort reflected “an arrogantly high level of confidence that certain people in certain positions have that people are not going to go vote”.
He acknowledged that younger voters could feel disillusioned by district lines intended to reduce their influence. Skyler Carrillo, a 21-year-old college senior, said he was organising a forum to encourage students to vote.
“I know it’s hitting Alabama hard,” Mr Carrillo said. “We can’t say our vote doesn’t matter if we aren’t going out to take that vote and take that chance.”
Turnout efforts have expanded since the ruling. The Congressional Black Caucus Institute has announced a coordinated campaign to reach Black and rural voters in the South, including communities in districts affected by redistricting.
In Memphis, paid canvassers have been visiting homes to explain that district boundaries have changed and encourage residents to vote. A separate non-partisan education partnership is being run by the National Civil Rights Museum.
Kimberly Davis, a 51-year-old Memphis resident, said Black voters faced a crisis as their political influence came under pressure.
“Encouraging people and letting them know that their vote has power is something that I want to make sure that we do,” she said. “There’s a serious need.”
