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The Obsession With White Voters Could Cost Democrats the Virginia Governor’s Race
The Nation ^ | October 23, 2017 | By Steve Phillips

Posted on 10/23/2017 12:49:09 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

One simple statistic highlights the folly of much of the Democratic Party’s strategy and spending. If every person of color who voted for Hillary Clinton in Virginia last year turns out to vote in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest on November 7, Democrat Ralph Northam could win without getting a single vote from a white person. Not one. And yet most Democratic strategists and donors overlook and undervalue voters of color in general and African-American voters in particular. As a result, Democrats are at real risk of losing eminently winnable contests in Virginia this year, as well as in myriad races in 2018.

Much of the progressive movement and many progressive campaigns are still dominated by White leadership, fixated on White voters. Since the last presidential election, this pattern has continued unabated with nearly all progressive attention focused on the white working-class voters who supported Trump in large numbers.

For all the analyses offered about the behavior of these voters in 2016, you hear almost nothing about the tactical and strategic decisions that led to the cataclysmic collapse of black-voter turnout.

Many of those funding and running Democratic campaigns have learned little—or, worse, learned the wrong lessons—about how to win in a racially combustible environment. Nationally, voters of color remain the cornerstone of a winning electoral coalition. In Virginia, Democrats don’t need any white votes (fortunately, there are at least 900,000 reliably Democratic white voters, making the math easier). But unless they enthusiastically embrace, engage, and invest in the communities of color, they run the risk of again losing elections they should win, in Virginia this year, across the country in 2018, and, God forbid, in the 2020 presidential race.

(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: blacks; blackvote; democrats; election; election2017; gillespie; northam; va2017; virginia; whites
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Steve Phillips is a national political leader, civil-rights lawyer, author, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and the founder and editor in chief of Democracy in Color, a multimedia platform on race and politics. He is the author of the New York Times best seller, Brown Is the New White: How a Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority (New Press). He is a regular contributor to The Nation.
1 posted on 10/23/2017 12:49:09 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Good! Keep them thinking they can win elections by cobbling together “coalitions of color”. It’s a sure-fire formula for continued losses.


2 posted on 10/23/2017 12:51:18 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Steve Phillips is a racist.


3 posted on 10/23/2017 12:51:37 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents - Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Don’t blacks know that voting is acting white?


4 posted on 10/23/2017 12:55:12 PM PDT by sparklite2 (I'm less interested in the rights I have than the liberties I can take.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Accroding to the Census Bureau, Virginia is 80% white, 19% black...............


5 posted on 10/23/2017 12:57:21 PM PDT by Red Badger (Road Rage lasts 5 minutes. Road Rash lasts 5 months!.....................)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I sure hope they focus all their efforts on the voters “of color”.


6 posted on 10/23/2017 1:02:55 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

They really want black against white? What a shock that would be....for them!


7 posted on 10/23/2017 1:03:14 PM PDT by bk1000 (I stand with Trump.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

So what is this imbecile saying? That Democrats no longer need or want a coalition that includes white people? Good luck with that since whites comprise about 72% of the US population. Granted that some percentage of them are Leftists, but if they are excluded from the coalition, their votes don’t go to Democrats. All the other race/ethnic groups combined don’t add up to 30% of the US population,and they are mostly concentrated in urban centers. Go ahead, Democrats, revel in your identity politics to the exclusion of most Americans. We might finally begin to turn the tide against Leftist crap.


8 posted on 10/23/2017 1:05:42 PM PDT by Avalon Memories (The question about fighting back is not what average people can to do, but how to do we do it?)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Harvey Pervberg sure seemed to have an obsession with young white actresses.


9 posted on 10/23/2017 1:06:35 PM PDT by Steely Tom ([Seth Rich] == [the Democrat's John Dean])
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

That’s exactly what this Myeshia Johnson/Frederica Wilson sordid ordeal is all about. Attempting to motivate black voters to get out and vote against non Democrat candidates.

Only problem is that it’s probably good for 5 points for the conservative/ Republican candidate.

Despicable what they did, and people with a brain know the truth and won’t forget.


10 posted on 10/23/2017 1:13:25 PM PDT by CodeJockey (Trump... The exorcist of Cultural Marxism)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Ms Clinton did not receive even 50% of the vote in Virginia. This analysis is nuts.


11 posted on 10/23/2017 1:14:00 PM PDT by bagman
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Much of the progressive movement and many progressive campaigns are still dominated by White leadership, fixated on White voters.

They speak as if two-thirds of the nation should just go away and die, never to vote or hold office again.

12 posted on 10/23/2017 1:23:32 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (I was not elected to continue a failed system. I was elected to change it. --Donald J. Trump)
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To: sparklite2

I call on Blacks to take a knee on voting!


13 posted on 10/23/2017 1:29:39 PM PDT by Obadiah
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
If every person of color who voted for Hillary Clinton in Virginia last year turns out to vote in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest on November 7, Democrat Ralph Northam could win without getting a single vote from a white person. Not one.

LOL! Really???

Not one? Steve, you need some lessons in math.

From Wikipedia:

Virginia Ethnicity   Non-Hispanic White 62.7% Black or African American 19.7% Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 9.0% Asian 6.5% American Indian and Alaska Native  0.5%

14 posted on 10/23/2017 1:30:32 PM PDT by Alas Babylon! (Keep fighting the Left and their Fake News!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The headline and much of the writing is completely misleading - probably to attract clicks for the author and the magazine.

Bottom Line...

“In Virginia...there are at least 900,000 reliably Democratic white voters...”


15 posted on 10/23/2017 1:35:40 PM PDT by zeestephen
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To: Red Badger

That’s not even accounting for the eventual Blacks vs. Hispanics war that is going to break out over which group is first in line to collect racial spoils.


16 posted on 10/23/2017 1:43:11 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Unless there is a black candidate on the ballot, they will not turn out in huge numbers. Obozo’s two elections, and Hilliary’s loss in 2016 told us this.

The Dems are now stuck with having to have a black candidate at all times, whether they want to or not.

Had Hilliary picked a black running mate she might have won, but she was to vain to do so..............


17 posted on 10/23/2017 1:53:19 PM PDT by Red Badger (Road Rage lasts 5 minutes. Road Rash lasts 5 months!.....................)
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To: bagman

Hillary Clinton won VA by 4% even with Blue NOVA thrown in. Hardly an impressive win.

And she didn’t clear 50% in the Old Dominion State.


18 posted on 10/23/2017 2:00:00 PM PDT by goldstategop ((In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever))
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Math is hard for Steve.

If all the white voters who voted for Trump vote for Gillespie, and Steve's dream comes true and no whites vote for Northam, Northam gets creamed.
19 posted on 10/23/2017 2:08:17 PM PDT by stylin19a (Lynch & Clinton - Snakes on a Plane)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
In Virginia, Democrats don’t need any white votes

OK then.

20 posted on 10/23/2017 2:09:46 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Single payer is coming. Which kind do you like)
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