I think that this CNN article is basically right. I don’t see much evidence that, other things being equal, the Republicans nominating African American candidates for elected office helps the GOP with African-American voters.
There is only one place where the article could be a little stronger. South Carolina had elections for both of her Senate seats in 2014. Both of the Senate races were won by Republicans. The article notes that Tim Scott (who is African American) got 10 percent of the African American vote to Lindsay Graham’s 6 percent. That might be some slight evidence that nominating an African American candidate might have a small impact on the willingness of African Americans to vote GOP. On the other hand, Scott got 82 percent of the white vote to Graham’s 74 percent.
Or look at Louisiana. In 2008, Mary Landrieu was running in about the best national environment possible for a Democratic candidate. She received 96 percent of the African American vote and won a majority in the first round. This year, Landrieu was running in a far worse national environment for Democrats and she also faced the famous Elbert Guillory ad that got some conservatives excited. In the first round of the Louisiana Senate race, Landrieu got 94 percent of the African-American vote.
Conservatives sometimes get excited by the election (or even the nomination) of African-American Republican candidates or messages to African Americans broadcast by right-leaning African-American spokesmen. The idea (which is not always explicitly articulated) is that these African-American officeholders and spokesmen will play some key role in reaching out to African-American voters Well, some of them might do just that, but not because they are African American. As far as I can tell, when it comes to garnering African-American votes, the impact of the GOP’s nominating African-American candidates or putting forward African-American spokesmen is somewhere between very small and nonexistent.
That doesn’t mean that Republicans should give up. Republican Candidates like Mitch Daniels and John Kasich have been able to win over 20 percent or more of the African-American vote. When it comes to learning how to find common ground with right-leaning African American voters, conservatives should first look at what Daniels and Kasich got right.
This is actually good news. We should be glad that, in winning African American voters, what really matters is the content of the message and not the skin color of the messenger.