Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Looking for Black women candidates? Here’s how to find them.

Jennfer Ruth-Green

Jennifer Ruth-Green is the Republican candidate for Indiana's 1st congressional district.

Ruth-Green campaign

Black women running for office have been breaking records this year, and Glynda Carr is trying to help them go beyond the candidacy stage to become officeholders at all levels of government.

Carr is president and CEO of Higher Heights for America, a national organization advocating for the collective political power of Black women, and the group’s #BlackWomenRun database is designed to support candidates for federal, state and local offices regardless of party.

“We are building a network of Black women and allies, donors and members to harness the power of Black women,” Carr said.


The database – which Carr describes as “comprehensive but not complete” – provides links to social media accounts and websites for Black women (regardless of party) seeking federal and state offices, as well as mayoral positions in the nation’s 100 largest cities. For candidates who do not have the resources to build their own campaign websites, the database can serve as a portal to other information.

“We look forward to continuing to grow it robustly in out years with more information,” said Carr, who explained that they hope to expand the database in the out years. And while Higher Heights and its partners do the bulk of the data collection, candidates are able to submit their own information, subject to verification.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Now in its second election cycle, the database only provides information for general elections, but Carr hopes to be able to expand to primaries in the future.

“We hope that it’s a resource for voters, media and people who want to support Black women,” she said.

Higher Heights database

More Black women are running for Congress and governor than ever before, according to Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics.

  • In House campaigns, 105 Black women are the Democratic nominees (up from the previous record of 89, set in 2020) along with 29 Republicans (up one from 2020).
  • Among Senate nominees, 16 Democrats are Black women (up from nine in 2020) to go along with six Republicans (up two from 2020).
  • And in the gubernatorial races, 11 Democratic nominees are Black women (up from five in 2018), along with one Republican (there were two in 2014).

Black women fill just 5 percent of Congress, 3 percent of statewide offices and 5 percent of state legislatures – slightly below their overall share of the U.S. population (seven percent).

“Black women across the country ... are uniquely connected to the power of the voting booth but severely underrepresented,” Carr said.

But at a time when Black women in office are the subject of racism and sexism, the database could be used for nefarious means.

“At the end of the day Black women in this democracy have been negatively targeted,” Carr said. “Historically women and women of color are actively discouraged from running for office.

They are targeted by well funded mis- and disinformation, and they have had to start having security because of death threats.”

All that said, Higher Heights has not received any reports of the database being used for such purposes.

“A lot of work is based on amplifying Black women’s voices,” Carr said. “We also want to be the trusteed, reliable source for information and to combat mis- and disinformation.”

Read More

Introducing The Expand Democracy 5

Introducing The Expand Democracy 5

In March, Rob Richie and Eveline Dowling launched a new Expand Democracy publication: The Expand Democracy 5. Each week they lift up five stories connected to their core belief: if democracy is not expanding, it is shrinking. They’re on the lookout for informative articles and timely news associated with a pro-democracy proposal that they believe warrants greater public awareness, often with links allowing readers to go deeper and connect with those advancing the idea.

In keeping with The Fulcrum’s mission to share ideas that help to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives, we intend to publish The Expand Democracy 5 in The Fulcrum each Friday, beginning today.

Keep ReadingShow less
Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin
- YouTube

Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin

The Fulcrum presents The Path Forward: Defining the Democracy Reform Movement. Scott Warren's interview series engages diverse thought leaders to elevate the conversation about building a thriving and healthy democratic republic that fulfills its potential as a national social and political game-changer. This initiative is the start of focused collaborations and dialogue led by The Bridge Alliance and The Fulcrum teams to help the movement find a path forward.

Karissa Raskin is the new CEO of the Listen First Project, a coalition of over 500 nationwide organizations dedicated to bridging differences. The coalition aims to increase social cohesion across American society and serves as a way for bridging organizations to compare notes, share resources, and collaborate broadly. Karissa, who is based in Jacksonville, served as the Director of Coalition Engagement for a number of years before assuming the CEO role this February.

Keep ReadingShow less
Business professional watching stocks go down.
Getty Images, Bartolome Ozonas

The White House Is Booming, the Boardroom Is Panicking

The Confidence Collapse

Consumer confidence is plummeting—and that was before the latest Wall Street selloffs.

Keep ReadingShow less
Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship
Getty Images, Mykyta Ivanov

Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship

The current approaches to proactively counteracting authoritarianism and censorship fall into two main categories, which we call “fighting” and “Constitution-defending.” While Constitution-defending in particular has some value, this article advocates for a third major method: draining interest in authoritarianism and censorship.

“Draining” refers to sapping interest in these extreme possibilities of authoritarianism and censorship. In practical terms, it comes from reducing an overblown sense of threat of fellow Americans across the political spectrum. When there is less to fear about each other, there is less desire for authoritarianism or censorship.

Keep ReadingShow less