Democrats in statewide political races have much to learn from outcomes in 2022 midterm races. While the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has been taking a victory lap for the retention of all Senate Democratic incumbents up for reelection, it had little to do with the victory of Sen. Raphael Warnock’s triumph over Herschel Walker, Trump’s handpicked Republican candidate for the seat.

There are important lessons to be learned from these recent political events although they have been exaggerated in many instances by Democrats and Republicans, alike. Both groups claimed to have mobilized their voters to come out in Georgia’s December 6th runoff, but Sen. Warnock was singularly excellent in rallying his base voters and a respectful number of Independents, Republican dissidents, unaffiliated voters, and ethnic minorities to support him.

His singular efforts (co-developed by Stacey Abrams) were instrumental in his win. He campaigned in all 159 Georgia counties with a message tailored to their policy interests and needs. As a result of these efforts, he was able to reduce his loss margins in red counties - between November 9th and December 6th - by an average of five points, thus increasing his overall vote totals.

This strategy is reminiscent of the campaign strategies implemented by Doug Wilder (in his battle to become the first African American Governor of Virginia in 1989), Deval Patrick (in his race to become the first Black Governor of Massachusetts in 2006), and Barack Obama (in his quest to become the first African American President in 2008). They all pursued nearly identical political tactics to accomplish their goals.

First, a mistake that is routinely made by Black candidates is that those who are embraced by the Party’s power structure virtually always surround themselves with non-African American advisors and strategists who are well-intentioned but lack the necessary cultural understandings and community connections to advance their candidates. The more recent ones rely on algorithms, analytics, etc. that have limited utility to African American and other ethnic-minority aspirants.

These advisors direct minimal dollars to minority field generals, advertising agencies, and get-out-the- vote (GOTV) leaders. And the returns on these meager contributions reveal these facts. But sadly, the Black contenders are oblivious to this reality and keep repeating the same dumb approaches and expecting a different result.

Voters of color are keen observers of their methods and have responded with disinterest and lower turnout rates as compared to those of their Republican opponents which doom them to defeat. As noted in earlier columns, Cheri Beasley, a midterm Democratic contender for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina and Mandela Barnes, a Democrat who competed for the U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin both lost by narrow margins in their respective contests against right-wing Republicans who employed racial dog whistles throughout their campaigns.

The disconcerting part of these situations is that Cheri Beasley lost a statewide race for Chief Justice in 2020 using the same failed strategy and apparently learned nothing from it. And Mandela Barnes who became Wisconsin’s first Black Lt. Governor in 2018, on the strength of the African American vote, largely ignored his key constituency in 2022. They both made strategic mistakes and suffered from low turnout of their base voters.

Second, Wilder, Patrick, and Obama organized their respective natural bases of Blacks and other ethnic minority voters (Hispanics, Native Americans [whatever the population size], and Asian and Pacific Islanders.) They recognized that these are the fastest growing American populations which are driving the nation toward being a non-majority country by 2040, and perhaps earlier. Moreover, their combined growth is significant in many states including California, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and many others which are rapidly changing the voting electorate.

Warnock, for example, developed language and culturally-specific radio and TV ads and literature to reach these individuals. He also sent out multi-racial and multi-cultural door-to-door teams to canvass voters and to get them to the polls. These approaches were modeled by Doug Wilder, Deval Patrick, and Barack Obama. They understood that voters need to be respected, especially ethnic minorities, who have been historically taken for granted by both political parties, especially Democrats.

These continuing oversights are inexcusable as the voting demographics continue to change moving forward. Political contestants will have to be even more attentive to the approximate projected growth of ethnic minority Americans by 2050 or before:

• Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders by 420%,

• Hispanic Americans by 250%,

• Native Americans by 110% and

• African Americans by 98%.

The aforementioned errors will have to be corrected by those African American and other ethnic minority nominees. It also needs to be recognized that there are multiple ethnic subgroups within ethnic minority populations. Thoughtful, seasoned politicians already know this and proceed accordingly.

Former Black Congresswoman Karen Bass (D-CA), who was recently elected Mayor of Los Angeles, was outspent by her billionaire adversary, Rick Caruso (a Republican before he announced for mayor) 11:1 ($104 million to $9 million). She organized Los Angeles’ diverse demographic groups (comprised of Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, and Native Americans) and drove their turnout to the polls to vote her into office.

Democrats and Blacks are urged to reconsider and correct these political miscues as they prepare for 2024. Otherwise, they could be headed for disaster up and down the ballot.