WASHINGTON — The Senate has the potential for history-making this fall, with not one, but two, Black women possibly elected to the chamber, a situation never seen in America since Congress was created more than 200 years ago.
Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester marks the milestone by saying that the reason she does this work is not about making history, “but to make a difference, an impact, on people's lives.”
Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks said that people like her, and stories like hers, don’t usually make it to the U.S. Senate, “but they should.”
If the two Democratic candidates prevail in their elections this November, their arrival would double the number of Black women — from two to four — who have ever been elected to the Senate, whose 100 members have historically been, and continue to be, mostly white men.
Never in the Senate have two Black women served together at the same time.
“I have to pause and think, How is that possible?” asked Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
“It’s not that white male attorneys' perspective shouldn’t be at the table,” said Walsh, but “they shouldn’t be the only thing at the table.”
To be sure, there are a many stairs to climb before Senate history would be made this election, where not only the White House, but control of Congress is being fiercely contested, and essentially a toss-up. The Senate races, in particular, are heated, grueling and costly.
Blunt Rochester is almost assured to defeat the Republican candidate after Tuesday's uncontested primary for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Tom Carper in the small state that is home to President Joe Biden and where she is the at-large representative to the House. But the race in Maryland between Alsobrooks and Republican Larry Hogan, the popular former governor, is expected to be tight to the finish — and it could determine which party takes majority control in the Senate.
Alsobrooks upended conventional wisdom to beat back wealthy David Trone in the primary to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin by amassing deep grass roots and party support, showcased in a notable campaign ad with hundreds of backers. She is the former State’s Attorney for sprawling Prince George’s County and is now its top County Executive.
On their private text chain Blunt Rochester says they call themselves “sister senator to be,” as they run down-ballot from Vice President Kamala Harris — a friend and colleague who became the second Black woman ever elected to the Senate when she won in 2016 — in her own historic run for the White House.
The first Black woman elected to the Senate, Democratic Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois in 1992, served a single term. Harris was the second. And a third Black woman, Sen. Laphonza Butler, was appointed to fill out the term of long-serving California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died in 2023.
“People are anxious and excited at the same time,” said Glynda C. Carr, the president and CEO of Higher Heights for America, an organization that works to elect Black women to office.
What’s striking about their campaigns is the way the two women embrace their own backgrounds but also, like Harris, don’t dwell on the historic firsts they would bring to the job, leaving it to the voter to see their Blackness and hear their voices as women.
“The vast majority of us know that we have so much more in common than what separates us,” Harris said on the debate stage this week, brushing past Trump as he revived questions about her race.
On the campaign trail Blunt Rochester has shared the story of the Reconstruction Era documents showing her great, great, great-grandfather, who had been enslaved in Georgia, as now having the right to vote.
As she reminisces on that history, “what we've come through as a country,” she said she also thinks of what she will pass on to her own new baby granddaughter.
“There isn't a cookie cutter way to run" for office, Blunt Rochester told AP.
Blunt Rochester and Harris are close, both entering Congress the same year and often sitting together at Congressional Black Caucus events. “The most important thing is that we show up as our authentic selves," she said, adding "because it requires all of our different and diverse lived and work experiences.”
Alsobrooks launched her campaign for the Senate in a video telling her family’s story of leaving South Carolina for Maryland after her great-grandfather was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy after a traffic stop.
As a young prosecutor she first met Harris, then attorney general in California, a friendship that formed more than a decade ago.
But unlike 2016, when Hillary Clinton ran for president in a white suit symbolic of the suffragettes, the 2024 Senate candidates are positioning themselves more broadly in a way that may appeal to a wider electorate but also signals the cultural shift as the country becomes more diverse and Congress becomes more reflective of the electorate.
“We learned from 2016, we’re not going to lead with identity in the same way that Hillary Clinton did,” said Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, an organization that supports women of color in American leadership.
Allison said a new generation of candidates is showing you can be “holding multiple identities” at once. “It's demonstrating you have a heart for people who you're not like ... but deserve to be served by government and deserve representation."
The challenges Black women face to get to this point in the campaign are steep, rooted in a two-party political system that has often been slow to support Black women candidates and quick to doubt their ability to win statewide office, despite the qualifications.
Over the years, the parties have not always shared ample resources with Black women candidates who strategists said proved they could have had more success in several close races, creating a Catch-22 loop that reinforces biased attitudes against their electability.
In fact, the Senate may have been poised to swear in another Black woman, Rep. Barbara Lee, who ran for the open seat from California after Feinstein's death but fell short during a multi-candidate primary. Rep. Adam Schiff ran a strong campaign to become the Democratic front-runner with wide party support and is expected to handily win the seat that is now filled temporarily by Butler. Others have faced tough political odds, including Democrat Valerie McCray this year in Republican-heavy Indiana.
With the Senate heading toward a 50-50 split, tens of millions of dollars are being spent in Maryland, where the popular Hogan was recruited by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to help the GOP win back the majority.
Hogan and Alsobrooks appear to generally appreciate one another. Alsobrooks said Hogan was a good governor, but warns that in the Senate he would be a decisive GOP vote.
Hogan's campaign said he greatly respects Alsobrooks, and is proud of the work they did together during his administration.
“Our campaign has been laser-focused on Maryland and Marylanders — their local concerns and priorities, and the opportunity to elect an independent swing vote who will put the best interests of the state above party-line politics,” said Hogan campaign spokeswoman Blake Kernen.
During the Democratic National Convention the two women candidates held an event at a historic Black history museum in Chicago with Moseley Braun delivering remarks and Butler introducing them.
Blunt Rochester, noting her own powder blue power suit with its padded foundation, said she’s standing on the shoulders of those who came before her and has strong shoulders ready for those who come next.
