Will 2022 Be The Year of the Black Republican?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: From the politics of art to the art of politics, in the United States, will 2022 to be the year of the black Republican? It could be. With the record number of African American candidates in the GOP. So, what is driving this? Ted Johnson from the Brennan Center for Justice explains to Michel Martin.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Ted Johnson, thanks so much for talking with us.

THEODORE R. JOHNSON, SENIOR FELLOW, BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND AUTHOR, “WHEN THE STARS BEGIN TO FALL”: Thanks for having me. Good to be here, always.

MARTIN: Even writing a number of pieces over the course of the fall about sort of the interesting racial dynamics, I guess, that we could say, perhaps, will animate this very important midterm elections. And one of the pieces that really caught our eye was about the number of black Republicans running this election cycle. You said that, you know, even before the primaries were over, there were some 80 black candidates running in the party’s primaries this year. This is an extraordinary thing given how few black Republicans have, you know, certainly served in Congress over the years, but have even tried. First, talk about, why you think there are so many African American candidates running this year?

JOHNSON: It’s so interesting. You know, Donald Trump, when he was running in 2016 said, I guaranty you, in four years, I will win 95 percent of the black vote. And, of course, he fell far, far short of that. But he made it a point, every so often, to sort of, at least, tip his hat to the black voter because he recognized that if he can make any inroads, something Republicans have been thinking about for decades, that it would make the Democrat’s path to victory far narrower. So, what’s happening in this moment? At the same time, the black voters are giving the least amount of their vote in presidential elections, ever, to the Republican Party, there is a historic number of black candidates running for office on the Republican ticket. And my sense of this is, that opportunity is there. One, there are always black Republicans. There always will be. In fact, we should want there to be black Republicans. But the question is, why this number of candidates, when the party is so unpopular with black folks? And because the standard bearer for the party is at least racially intolerant and a lot of is rhetoric. And what that does is create this sort of veneer of racial intolerance for the entire party. And soi, when you have black candidates that are willing to stand up and say, I am pro Trump, I believe the election was stolen, I am a Republican, it provides a sort of a shield against some of those attacks or accusations of racism to the party. So, how can a party that’s racist have a historic number of black candidates? And never mind Hispanic candidates, Asian American candidates that are running. This is the sort of protection against that kind of accusation. So, what that does is for the back Republicans that want to run for office, this creates a pathway that white Republicans can’t leverage. And so, if you are a black Republican and you are — have Donald Trump’s stamp of approval, if you adhere to the MAGA philosophy of Trumpism is your thing, you not only have that going for you in a party — in a politics that’s incredibly polarized, but your race gives you an advantage in a weird sort of way because of how the caricatures and the stereotypes of the Republican Party itself.

MARTIN: In your reporting, do you have any sense whether the majority of these candidates, what they’re recruited to run because it was deemed that they would be highly desirable or did they put their hand up? How did a work?

JOHNSON: Yes. And so, I think that there’s three basic paths for most of these folks. One is that they’re just Republicans and they want to serve and this was their pathway. I think John James in Michigan is an example of that. A second pathway is they’re kind of opportunists. They want to serve in Congress for whatever reason, maybe it’s out of principle, maybe it’s just because they want to be approximate to power, but they sort of check out the Democratic Party and they were told, get in line, lots of folks ahead of you. And then, they shop up at the Republican Party headquarters and they say, wow, a black dude, veteran, conservative, you know, maybe we’ve got a place for you. You can actually help diversify the party. Help, again, be a shield against some of these accusations, and maybe pull off an upset. And then, the third path is sort of the — these are the folks that are basically true MAGA people. They just believe the party is less important than their belief in Trump. And these folks definitely have been recruited to some extent in some of these races. So, yes, recruitment happens. Yes, there are just principle black conservatives running and yes, some folks are opportunists looking for the shortest path to run for office instead of being told to wait in line. I don’t think anyone of those pathways are the most dominant, but the one in recurring theme across all of them is that some level of recruitment had to happen for folks to get through the primary successfully, which is to say the party machinery needed to get behind them in a crowded primary field in terms of money, exposure, certainly getting a Trump endorsement.

MARTIN: Presumably, there should be political competition, you know, among all groups, right? I mean, the white electorate, we have the last two election cycles, presidential election cycles was split 50/50, right? Just about, you know, 50/50 between the Republicans and Democrats, between Biden and Trump, between Clinton and Trump. So, we don’t consider them usual that there’s competition amongst white voters, but we do think it’s interesting when Republicans can attract black voters at all and I just think we should talk about why that is. Like, why are we having this conversation? Why does this matter?

JOHNSON: Yes. So, it’s just — there’s tons of history here. Look, right after the Civil War, once black men were in franchised in the United States and then, by the 15th Amendment in 1870, the black vote was lopsided, it was all for Republicans then, the party of Lincoln. And essentially, over the last 150 years, black voters have always voted in a lopsided manner for the party that was pro civil rights or against the party that was anti civil rights. And invariably, that’s been the case except for one short period between 1920s and ’30s when both Republicans and Democrats because of the great migration, because the northern Democrats and Dixiecrats in the south were very different, there was a little bit of a competition for the black vote happening. And what they did was, in a way, mute the civil rights issue differences between the two parties until Truman kind of signs the federal order that desegregates the military, the federal work force and then, were off to Democrats making a real push to win black voters. So, when you have this electorate that’s always voted in a lopsided manner for a pro civil rights party, you end up with a black elected officials also being heavily weighted on the side of the — that’s pro civil rights and the party that’s pro civil rights. So, when you get these moments where you’ve black candidates running in a party that’s different from where the black electorate is voting, it’s worth — it’s of note. And that’s exactly what’s happening now. As I mentioned, the Republican Party from 2018 I think to 2020 has averaged about 6 percent of the black vote in presidential elections. From 1968 to 2004, Republican presidential candidates averaged over 11 percent. So, the party is historically unpopular with black voters and yet, having these historic numbers with black folks running for office. That in and of itself is worthy of note. The other thing is, the largest class of black Republicans ever in Congress was in the 44th Congress, I think it was, in 1873, still reconstructive period. In the age of Trump, the number of black Republicans in Congress might match that number, which just feels sort of out of balance from what history has told us and what political science suggests. But when we think of the current state of this Republican Party, this is the party first captured by the Tea Party, post Obama, and now, by Trump in MAGA and Trumpism in today. And in these moments, it is easier for black candidates to signal their allegiance to the party because of these movements and that makes them more attractive candidates than, again, white primary candidates because of the veneer again or racial intolerance that the party has been battling for decades. And so, all of these things coming together is what makes this moment so noteworthy and it will be quite interesting to see what happens post midterms.

MARTIN: I think traditionally, people have thought about candidate recruitment as a way to attract more people of that demographic to the party, am I right? I mean, people think, oh, well — oh, we really need to attract more women to vote for the party. So, we should recruit more women. We need to attract more Latinos, so we should recruit more Latinos. Is this bad? I mean, is really the argument that more African Americans are going to vote for the Republican Party because they are these candidates? Because I got to tell you that their politics are wildly out of step with what the majority of African Americans generally believe and how they structure their politics.

JOHNSON: Yes. So, certainly, there is this thread that if you have candidates that look like the voters you’re trying to attract, that makes the attraction easier. That is not been true for the Republican Party for several decades. And then, it’s not just that, but the quality of the candidates you’re recruiting. You know, when Barack Obama was running for Senate in Illinois and his opponent fell out of the race, they recruited Allen Keys, a black Republican from Maryland, imported him into Illinois and said, you know, now, go challenge the other black guy for the Senate seat. Herschel Walker, he was recruited and given the Trump stamp of approval, but the quality of the candidate doesn’t attract more black voters to the party, it’s actually damaging in my view. And unfortunately, sometimes strategists get — they miss that part. Get a black person, stick them in the role, they’ll immediately attract some black vote, that makes it easier, our path to victory, a little bit easier, it’s just not true. So, quality of the candidate matters. And there is — again, as you mentioned, that sort of distinguished background in traditionally conservative fields, like the military or law enforcement or small business owners, Tim Scott is the profile of the kind of black business owner that Republicans could recruit in order to try to attract more black voters. And, you know, if you look at how Scott has done in South Carolina, he did better than Trump did with black voters in South Carolina, marginally better, but better. So — but Tim Scott and Herschel Walker are two different types of candidates. Condoleezza Rice and Allen West, two different kinds of candidates. So — or two different kinds of black Republicans. So, the idea that race alone and party affiliation alone is enough to diversify the party tent is wrong and decades of racist have proved out to be true.

MARTIN: But one of the things I think that’s so noteworthy about a number of candidates running is that they are election deniers. You know, which is they assert that the election was stolen, you know, wrongly decided. At the core of this argument, is that a candidate who is favored by a majority of people other than you could not possibly be legitimate, right? And this really strikes up a core for many African American voters who have been told, you know, throughout history that they are not legitimate voters, they’re not really citizens, they don’t really deserve the full rights of citizenship. So, the core of it is sort a deeply offensive to many African American voters. You know, I just have to ask you, you what do you make of that?

JOHNSON: Here’s the sort of one uncomfortable truth is that if you are a black Republican running in a congressional district that has been gerrymandered to be favorable to Republicans, you don’t need black voters to win the race. And so, the things you may say that may offend black sensibility generally won’t harm your electoral prospects as long as they don’t offend the Republican base that is going to — that got you through the primary and that’s going to send you to Congress. Now, in those purple districts or places that may lean one way or the other and might be a little bit more competitive, you’re more likely to see those black Republicans not adhering as closely or sort of latching onto the big lie or the Dobbs decision, they may try to mute that part of their record or remove that part of their campaign website in order to attract more — a broader coalition of voters that they will need to win. The bottom line here is that all of this is about electoral expedience. What is the message I need to put out to help me win?

MARTIN: But, you know, what I think I hear you saying though is that among white conservative Republicans or at least among white Republicans who are very pro Trump, grace is not the significant factor anymore, it’s whether you believe that Trump is the rightful president. That’s new, isn’t it?

JOHNSON: That is. The hyper partisanship, this toxic polarization has definitely changed the political landscape in ways that I think is surprising to those of us that had been looking at it for years. But here’s what I’d say, it’s not that race doesn’t matter to conservatives anymore, it’s that the — you know, all of the studies still show that there are high levels of racial resentment, which is kind of a contested score of things but is something that’s been measured overtime. And so, we can at least measure — you know, compare apples to apples. And when it comes to white Democrats versus white Republicans, white Republicans tend to hold a higher level of this racial resentment score. So, what we’re see now, post Obama, certainly with the Tea Party and with the Trumpism is that for black candidates or minority candidate’s writ large that were willing to really marry themselves to the Tea Party philosophy, to Trumpism, that that connection to that ideology outweighs whatever resistance or resentment folks may have on the basis of race. And so, if we look at the Tea Party movement across the country, that was the time that Bobby Jindal wins the governorship in Louisiana. Nikki Haley wins the governorship in South Carolina. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Allen West, Mia Love, Will Hurd, all of these minority candidates are able to win primaries by clinging more closely to the Tea Party philosophy than the Republican establishment candidates that they’re running against in the primaries. So, whatever resentment primary Republican voters may hold towards minority candidates, when those minority candidates show that they are more conservative, that they’re more ideological than the white competition, then the race isn’t the hindrance that it might be in another set of circumstances. And what MAGA has done has provided another set of cover for minority candidates to cling to that, which then reduces the influence of their race or ethnicity or even gender might otherwise have in a different set of political circumstances.

MARTIN: There could be a historic number of black Republicans in Congress in the next couple of years. And many of them — most of them are very, very conservative. How do you think it will change things, or do you think it will?

JONES: Yes. You know, so it will really depend on the quality of the candidates that arrive in Congress. If we have a historic class but there are eight Herschel Walkers, that’s not going to change much in terms of sort of the black electorate’s voting attitudes or behaviors. But if you have, you know, 3 or 4 that are Colin Powell, Condi Rice-like, over time perhaps that does begin to open some, some avenues. The question is, could a Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice be elected to Congress in today’s political environment? Colin Powell could not, he couldn’t do it at the height of his popularity in the late nineties. Perhaps, you know, maybe if he had decided to run for president, maybe a door would’ve opened, but the Pat Buchanan wing of the party was already boxing that kind of stuff out. And so the political environment now, especially with Trump still dominating the new cycle in the airwaves requires minority candidates more times than not to align themselves with something that black voters generally reject.  And so, if you send a historic number of those kinds of candidates into Congress, that is not going to increase the attraction of the party to black voters. And in fact, it will more likely ostracize those black Republicans from black America instead of making the party more attractive. So you, you have to have quality candidates who are principled, who are consistent, and who can still speak to the black experience in America. And, you know, you’ve seen the polls something like in, at any given time, 20 to 30% of black folks identify as conservative. It’s, black conservatism is a little bit different from white conservatism. But if you have a principle black conservative who stands by his or her principles and serves that way, willing to vote their conscience and not just be a party soldier, then perhaps over time if those numbers increase, the party becomes more attractive. Looking in my crystal ball, I don’t think that’s the way it’s gonna go. I think the, the, whatever the nature of the Republican party will be, minority candidates will probably be the superlative characterization of that nature. And that will often, unless things change, will not be that attractive to black voters. And as we’ve seen over the course of the last 60 years, the Republican brand is less attractive over time, and today the least attractive it’s been. And you know, certainly since the early 20th century. So I don’t have high hopes that a diversifying republican congressional body will attract more black voters to to the congressional presidential election roles.

MARTIN: Ted Johnson, thanks so much for talking with us.

JOHNSON: Thank you.