Steve Phillips, The Guardian

Nikki Haley’s difficulty articulating the cause of the civil war – the war that began in her home state of South Carolina – has put that issue in the headlines just days before the first votes are cast in the Republican nomination contest. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

The New York Times released a poll on Monday showing Donald Trump beating Joe Biden in several key states, and progressives across the country started to panic. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Washington Post

Do California Democrats believe that representation matters, or do they just pretend to? We’re about to get our answer. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

The party needs a sober, empirically grounded analysis of what we really know—and don’t know—about how best to expand support among white voters. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

The mainstream media has been harping on the implications of Black Republican candidates, but their influence on voters is not as significant as The New York Times suggests. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

One wonders what the Biden administration is afraid of when it comes to calling the Republicans’s bluff on raising the federal debt ceiling. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

“It’s hard to tell time by revolutionary clocks.” That observation by historian Lerone Bennett Jr. in an essay about the turbulent times of the late 1960s is equally apt today when trying to properly understand the dynamics of important political contests such as the 2024 race to replace California’s senior US senator, Dianne Feinstein. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

Today should be a national holiday in the United States, but the wrong people are celebrating. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

Welcome to White History Month! While February – the shortest of months – is typically associated with a 28-day acknowledgement of the historical contributions of African Americans, the truth of the matter is that this month, and every month, is actually a celebration of white history. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

House Democrats have a new campaign chief. She needs to make a lot of changes. Here are some good places to start. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Gaurdian

Why do we have such low expectations for white voters? The midterm elections brought into stark relief just how many white voters are willing to make a mockery of showing any pretense of concern for democracy, good governance or even the barest qualifications for our country’s highest offices. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Big Democratic wins in 2022 in Arizona represent a promising trend, and progressives need to learn its lessons. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

From the civil war to the January 2021 insurrection, the white nationalist response to democratic defeat has been to attempt to destroy US institutions and our national agreements. We shouldn’t tolerate this. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Those in the media sounding the alarm about civil unrest are right to be worried, but popular explorations of the term “civil war” don’t go far enough. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

A growing chorus of voices is warning that our democracy is in grave danger, but there is much less discussion of the exact nature of the threat. Recently, President Biden emphasized the severity of the threat by going to the place where the constitution was signed to give what the White House described as “a speech on the continued battle for the soul of the nation”. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

California will determine whether Democrats retain their majority in the House of Representatives. Conventional wisdom holds that the outcome of the midterm elections is a fait accompli in which Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will surrender her gavel to fellow Californian Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, but the actual outcome is far less foreordained, and the Golden State will have a big say in which Californian presides over the chamber in January 2023. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Conventional wisdom holds that Democrats are doomed to defeat in this year’s midterm elections. It is an article of faith that the party that controls the White House automatically loses seats in the next election, so much so that members of the Biden administration are already hiring lawyers in anticipation of needing to fend off investigations by a Republican-led Congress. But such an outcome is not a foreordained law of nature, and Democrats have previously defied the odds—most notably in 1998. The lessons from that contest offer valuable insight about how to maintain Democratic control of the House of Representatives this year. Read more.

The last time the United States failed to properly punish insurrectionists, they went on to form the Ku Klux Klan, unleash a reign of murderous domestic terrorism, and re-establish formal white supremacy in much of the country for more than 100 years. As the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack begins televised hearings this week, the lessons from the post-civil war period offer an ominous warning for this moment and where we go from here. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

The surest way to lose a battle is to not fight. Despite this fairly obvious logic, President Joe Biden and too many Democrats seem to have adopted a political strategy for the midterm elections of avoiding as many fights as possible. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Democrats worried about President Biden’s plummeting polling numbers and the party’s prospects in the midterm elections have stumbled on the solution to their problems: nominating and defending Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. By unapologetically championing racial equality in the form of finally putting an African American woman on the Supreme Court, they have both energized their base and garnered the support of a meaningful majority of the American people. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

“Black Girl Magic” is on full display in the supreme court confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Republicans are apoplectic. The juxtaposition of Jackson’s calm, confident, professionalism with the hostile, cynical and contemptuous questioning by senators such as Texas senator Ted Cruz is an object lesson for the entire world on the ongoing dynamics of systemic racism in the United States.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

Rightwing legislators across the country have seized on the bogeyman of so-called “critical race theory” as the latest weapon in their centuries-long practice of trying to scare white people that their hold on the country is slipping away. A total of 14 states have now passed legislation restricting how and what teachers can teach about race and racism in America. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

After Democrats lost seats in the House of Representatives in the 2020 elections, many were quick to conclude that the party had moved too far to the left, driving away Latino voters in the process. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

At the conclusion of the 1984 Democratic national convention, Jesse Jackson gathered his supporters and offered important perspective to those of us who had labored long and hard on his presidential campaign, telling us, “We’ve never gotten freedom at a convention. The convention is a comma, where you pause and go on. We’re going to keep fighting for freedom – at the polls, in the courts, in the streets.” And then he concluded by invoking the phrase made famous by Malcolm X – “Freedom, by any means necessary.” Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Just as Stacey Abrams’s 2018 Georgia gubernatorial campaign laid the foundation for the transformation of US politics in 2020 and 201, Beto O’Rourke’s 2022 Texas gubernatorial candidacy has the potential to bring about similar long-term revolutionary changes in American politics and public policy priorities for decades to come. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

A debate is raging about what type of policies Democrats should lead with. Simply following the polls is a flawed approach. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Terry McAuliffe’s defeat in Virginia shows what happens when you are in a war, and only one side fights. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

In light of Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s actions repeatedly obstructing progress on policies that would foster greater economic, and racial justice, momentum is gathering for an effort to back a Democratic challenge to her in the 2024 primary when she comes up for reelection. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Nina Turner has been criticized for a lot of things in the wake of her loss in the Cleveland, Ohio, special election last week. The conventional wisdom is that her politics were too leftist, and that she was too confrontational, to win in a time when Biden-like moderate politics are the order of the day. Those takes are nonsense; the race was eminently winnable. If there is a single critical mistake Turner made, it was placing her campaign in the hands of strategists who squandered her financial firepower on ineffective and ill-conceived expenditures. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Alarm bells are ringing about the dangerous implications of the behavior of the Republican Party. By doubling down on defense of the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, punishing any members who reject that lie, refusing to support an investigation into the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, and unleashing a fusillade of voter suppression legislation across the country, many see these actions as an ominous new trend in American politics that threatens the foundations of our democracy itself. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

If Democrats want to hold onto control of the House and Senate in 2022, they should talk more about defunding the police, not less. Read more.

Steve Phillips, Medium

Something very important happened in America on Tuesday.

Tishaura Jones, St. Louis city treasurer, won the election for Mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, becoming the first Black woman to hold that office. While that is exciting and inspiring in and of itself, the significance of her win goes far beyond the demographic milestone. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

The 2020 election showed that there is a right way and a wrong way for Democrats to try to win in states where they have historically lost. The extent to which they have learned those lessons will be revealed by the ways in which they pursue the winnable open Senate seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina next year. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

When I first met Stacey Abrams 10 years ago, I knew right away that the work she was doing in Georgia had great potential. While Stacey has graciously credited my wife and me as being among her first national supporters—even joking that we supported her before it was logical—the ingredients for success in Georgia were there all along, if you knew what to look for. Now that the world has come to marvel at the Georgia miracle, we should be thinking about what states are next and what lessons from the Georgia journey can be applied to the political transformation of other states. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Too many congressional Democrats are making a potentially fatal political miscalculation about the reason the party lost several seats in this year’s elections. And those incorrect interpretations of why Democrats lost at least 12 seats could lead to grievous missteps that will imperil their majority in 2022. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Who is in charge of the Democratic Party? In particular, who is in charge of its strategy and spending? That’s actually a surprisingly difficult question to answer—and it shouldn’t be, at a time when the party and the country face critical challenges that will affect millions of lives for years to come. Read more.

Steve Phillips, Medium

Much of the post-election analysis runs the risk of missing what is happening in American politics and what is on the horizon. Multiple factors played a role in the election outcome — increased turnout of voters of color, erosion of support for Trump among college-educated whites and seniors, and an extraordinary and unexpected increased turnout of Trump voters. Rather than attribute the results to any one single factor, as too many pundits are doing, the more instructive approach is to examine what the data shows about where the country is heading. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

In the final few weeks of the election, with Joe Biden looking strong (fingers crossed!), winning the Senate is a critical imperative in terms of rebuilding this country and reversing the damage caused by Trump. For the average activist, the best way to help in these final few weeks is to focus on Georgia and Texas, in particular the voter mobilization work happening in those states, as they are among the winnable races that could use the most help. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Why do we settle for mediocrity when we should be insisting on excellence? Having spent the past few weeks working on a report card grading the Democratic super PACs and the more than $600 million they’re planning to spend on the fall elections, my main takeaway is that we tolerate far too much mediocrity in progressive politics. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

What are we waiting for? If this is not the moment to finally come to terms with the United States’ 401-year legacy of government-sanctioned, anti-Black oppression, then, pray tell, when will that moment be? Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Bernie and I just talk about what’s next.” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent statement on the New York Times’ podcast The Daily reflected what’s on the minds of many who poured their time, energy, and resources into the progressive candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The New York Times

As Joe Biden formally begins his vice-presidential selection process, he needs to find a running mate who strengthens the Democratic ticket in the areas where he is weakest. The nomination contest has highlighted three sizable shortcomings that imperil his quest to defeat President Trump. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

After months of dancing around the issue of diversifying the Democratic ticket, the remaining viable candidates finally got more specific on Sunday, with Joe Biden firmly pledging to choose a woman as his running mate, and Bernie Sanders saying that “in all likelihood” he would follow suit. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

Donald Trump understands the importance of African American voters much better than Democrats and progressives do. Trump and his team are making sizable and smart investments in efforts to chip away at black support for Democrats. Yet those who want to oust Trump from the Oval Office are spraying millions of dollars in election spending in every direction except the African American community. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Guardian

Now that the first four contests of the Democratic nomination have concluded, it’s clear that whoever wins the nomination will owe their success to the love and support of people of color. The question is, will the nominee love them back? Read more.

Steve Phillips, The New York Times

Whatever you think about Bernie Sanders as a potential president, it is wrong to dismiss his chances of winning the office. Not only does most of the available empirical evidence show Mr. Sanders defeating President Trump in the national popular vote and in the critical Midwestern states that tipped the Electoral College in 2016, but his specific electoral strengths align with changes in the composition of the country’s population in ways that could actually make him a formidable foe for the president. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

The Democratic nomination contest is at a pivotal point, especially for the left. Progressive issues are ascendant, moderate candidates are vote-splitting, Bernie Sanders tops the polls, and Elizabeth Warren just had a very strong debate performance in Nevada. And yet despite the tantalizing proximity of progressive victory, there remains a glaring hole at the heart of the left’s strategy: the failure to prioritize the fight against white nationalism and racial resentment—the sources of this president’s power, and the cornerstones of capitalism’s structural inequality. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

The impeachment trial in the US Senate is clearly a constitutional and moral moment of truth. It is also an excellent opportunity to advance the nitty-gritty work that will defeat vulnerable incumbent Republican senators and allow Democrats to recapture control of that critical chamber when voters head to the polls this November. It is easy for progressives to get excited about compelling candidates—people with impressive life stories and hard-hitting ads—and then shower resources on those candidates. And, yes, charisma and well-crafted ads are nice. But as Virginia Democrats’ success last fall demonstrates, robust, statewide voter mobilization operations are better. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Life under this presidential administration has brought many dark days of despair. Looking ahead to the 2020 elections, many members of the media see doom and defeat. Away from the White House, however, this year also offered up ample reasons to hope as we head into the next. Here, then, is the evidence of things not seen: 10 stories from 2019 that should renew your faith in politics. Read more.

Steve Phillips, Democracy in Color

The Democratic National Committee faces a moment of truth as it grapples with the unintended consequences of debate qualification rules that have left the African American and Latino candidates off the stage (Andrew Yang was the sole person of color to qualify for the December debate). Underlying the reluctance to make changes in the qualification criteria is an unstated sentiment that it is inappropriate to explicitly take racial issues into account. The realities of racial fears and prejudices loom so large over this election, however, that it is impossible to not factor in race. While the DNC faces a difficult choice, whatever decision it makes — and making no changes is also a decision — will speak volumes about its values, savvy and strategy. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

It is clear that Democrats’ success in Virginia’s state elections earlier this month offers significant lessons for the national Democratic Party. By winning seven seats in the state legislature, Virginia Democrats flipped party control of both houses; with their Democratic governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, they now have control of every statewide office for the first time in more than two decades. Journalists have mined the backstory to try to understand how a formerly red (or, at best, purple) state is now completely controlled by Democrats; The New York Times attributed the outcomes to 30 years of demographic shifts, including a major increase in South Asian residents. It’s a significant change: People of color went from making up 24 percent of the state’s population in 1990 to close to 40 percent today. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

“Show me the money.” That famous phrase from the movie Jerry Maguire succinctly summarizes what the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee must do to show that its leaders are serious about addressing the controversy that recently exploded in light of criticisms raised by African American and Latino members of Congress regarding the committee’s hiring practices. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Should five people stand in the way of Congress’s performing its constitutional, historical, and moral duty? Despite widespread agreement among Democrats that the president has committed multiple impeachable offenses, fear of the political consequences of proceeding with impeachment continues to dominate the behavior of House Democrats. They need not be so worried. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The New York Times

President Trump’s tweet attacks on members of Congress of color, from “The Squad” to Representative Elijah Cummings, have made it clear that fanning the flames of white racial resentment is central to his politics and re-election strategy.

For decades, some left-leaning strategists stifled their candidates’ response to dog whistles for fear of alienating whites who they thought might otherwise support Democrats. Today, there is still great ambivalence about making the fight against racism a defining issue in the 2020 election. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

The next president of the United States will likely be Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, or Joe Biden. Looking at the nomination contest through the lens of the fundamental factors that have historically determined who wins the Democratic nomination—namely, the results in Iowa and then the subsequent much more diverse states—the current state of the race is that these candidates stand the best chances of prevailing as the nominee (and as I’ve previously written, the Democratic standard-bearer in 2020 is more likely than not to win the general election). Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Most people in this country do not support Donald Trump and never have. As The New York Times recently reported, he “is the only president in the history of Gallup polling never to earn the support of a majority of Americans even for a single day of his term.” This simple fact should be the starting point for all analysis of the 2020 presidential election, but rather than stating it at the outset, most pundits and columnists ignore a crucial reality. In doing so, they distort their coverage and default to Trump. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Nearly two years after the #MeToo movement burst the dam of centuries of silence about inappropriate male behavior, some Democrats still don’t know how to properly respond to allegations of male misconduct. Or, worse, some have learned the wrong lessons from the worst perpetrators such as Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Is the President of the United States a racist? The short answer is yes, but the question itself actually misses the mark and is dangerously misdirected for those who want to redress the ongoing consequences of racism in America. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Truly transforming this country requires more than winning the White House. While Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Gillum, and Stacey Abrams would all be amazing presidential candidates—and probably excellent presidents—they are each uniquely suited to advance the larger cause of political transformation by running again for the offices they just recently sought and fell short of attaining. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Coming out of the midterm elections and looking ahead to the 2020 presidential race, many pundits and strategists are once again urging Democrats to devote more time, energy, and resources to talking to white, working-class, and rural voters. Professor Joan Williams, a leading advocate for wooing white people, distilled this point of view in a recent piece in The Atlantic when she wrote, “If Democrats were to focus more attention on economic issues, they just might be able to win back the non-elite white voters they’ve been bleeding for half a century.” Read more.

Aimee Allison, The San Francisco Chronicle

The numbers are in and the message is clear: women of color won the midterms. The significance of this victory is bigger than you think. Women of color beat Republicans to win congressional seats and sealed a Democratic majority in the House. The Democrats now have the ability to check Donald Trump. In addition to changing the face of power, women of color enter Congress with organizing chops and powerful visions for social justice. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The New York Times

Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams, progressive African-American Democratic candidates, may not have won their races for governor in Florida and Georgia (both are still too close to call). But the strategy they followed is still the best strategy for Democrats to win: inspiring, mobilizing and turning out voters of color and progressive whites. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Los Angeles Times

Much of the conventional wisdom about the 2018 midterm election says that suburban women were the key demographic responsible for Democrats taking back the House.

Republicans enjoyed a 10-point advantage among white women voters in 2016, according to exit polls. In the 2018 midterm, that margin was cut to zero, with white women showing equal support for Democrats and Republicans (49% each). Read more.

Season 3 | Episode 10

Episode Aimee sits down with political insider Tim Molina and Democracy in Color founder Steve Phillips to debrief on the wins and losses of this historic election. Women of color were the indisputable winners, with many becoming firsts, unseating incumbents, flipping state and Congressional seats, and generally announcing their political ascension. But there was also widespread voter suppression, overt racism, and a stark distance between white voters and everyone else up and down the ballot. This episode will break down what it all means and what happens next.

Season 3 | Episode 9

Nse Ufot calls in from one of the political hot zones leading up to the elections. She leads the New Georgia Project, in a state where a contentious gubernatorial race has raised the stakes and deepened awareness about voter suppression, electoral misinformation, and other tactics to deplete black and brown voter rolls.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

“Old wineskins must make room for new wine.” During the Rainbow Coalition days of the 1980s, Jesse Jackson used that biblical reference to press the Democratic Party to make structural and strategic changes in order to seize the opportunities presented by the country’s demographic revolution.

Today, this change is more imperative than ever, with an unprecedented number of Democratic gubernatorial nominees of color in the 2018 election cycle. These new candidates, propelled by large numbers of new and potential voters, create new opportunities for Democratic gains across the country. But to take advantage of these opportunities, Democrats will have to discard their old approaches. Read more.

Season 3 | Episode 8

By acting locally with purpose and resolve, the millennial Black mayor and first lady of Stockton, CA, are leading the nation by example in their own backyard. He was endorsed by Oprah and President Obama, and mentored by Valerie Jarrett. She’s a brilliant scholar at the University of Cambridge studying the lives of women who shaped iconic men. Stockton, which he calls a “Microcosm of race and ideology,” is proving to be fertile ground for this rising political couple.

Aimee Allison

Celebrating She the People’s Success: The First-Ever National Women of Color and Politics Summit

This week a dream of mine came true, and it wasn’t just my dream, it was the dream of all of our godmothers. On September 20, 2018, I launched the first-ever national summit of women of color in politics. The sold-out inaugural She the People Summit, held in the Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco, drew nearly 600 attendees, mostly women of color, from 36 states. Read more.

Season 3 | Episode 7

She the People is a national movement to elect more women of color, spearheaded by our very own Aimee Allison, who, with her two guests, provides insights into how to harness the power of voters of color throughout the South and the rest of the country. Political strategists LaTosha Brown and Tory Gavito dissect the organizational errors that have mired Democrats for decades, explain why “the South eats strategy for breakfast,” and how women of color are redefining what makes a winning strategy one House seat at a time.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Democrats need a gain of 23 seats to reclaim the majority in the House of Representatives—here are districts where progressives can showcase their strength.

This November, Democrats have an excellent chance to pick up 23 Republican-held seats and take back control of the House of Representatives, but where should the left focus their time, energy, and resources over the next two months in order to do so? Read more.

Season 3 | Episode 6

Writer and political analyst Julie Kohler has a message for other white women about how to be better progressive and intersectional allies.

Episode transcript.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

If Democrats mainly rely on wooing moderate Republicans this fall, they will likely lose the opportunity to take back control of the House of Representatives. There simply aren’t enough Republican swing voters out there for Democratic candidates to amass the number of votes necessary to prevail in November’s midterm elections. And if Democratic institutions and organizations insist on prioritizing such a path, they will waste tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars and fail to fulfill their mission of stopping the wave of white supremacy, racism, and widespread hatred that is washing over this country. Read more.

Aimee Allison, Remezcla

We’re in trouble in this country. And the very people in this country that have been ignored, taken for granted, discounted, and dehumanized are the ones who are going to save us. The people who are most deeply affected and harmed by the cruel policies and practices of this country are the ones poised to lead as courageous candidates and elected officials, strategists, and voters. I’m talking about the saving graces of our democracy: women of color. Read more.

Season 3 | Episode 5

The California State Senator is in the race for his political life against a 20-year incumbent. But this son of an immigrant single mother says he's overcome bigger odds and is ready for this challenge. He's also not holding back on the failure of fellow Democrats to lead their party and the country.

Episode transcript.

Season 3 | Episode 4

The Detroit native is running to fill a key Democratic House seat in Michigan, one already mired in controversy. But the outspoken candidate has already taken on billionaires in defense of her constituents, thrice beating recall efforts. Simply put, Tlaib stands up no matter the size of the challenge.

Episode transcript.

Steve Phillips

On December 15, 2010, Ben Jealous wrote me an email introducing me to Stacey Abrams. He wrote, “Thanks for agreeing to talk to Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader of the GA Assembly. As I mentioned she is like a sister to me, and is the first woman to lead a party in either house of the GA Legislature. Stacey’s success will be transformative for the level of justice in GA.” Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

A candidate most people have never heard of, in a state few people pay attention to, could help lead the way in changing the political trajectory of this country. David Garcia’s gubernatorial bid in Arizona offers a roadmap for rebuilding progressive power, a vehicle for galvanizing voters to flip Republican-held congressional seats this year and the White House in 2020, and the opportunity to bury the poisonous policies of a president who is callously crushing the moral foundation of our nation. Read more.

Season 3 | Episode 3

The gubernatorial candidate and fourth-generation Arizonan is campaigning on the premise that for his state to live up to its promise, it must elect someone who represents the state's population more accurately.

Episode transcript.

Season 3 | Episode 2

The Congressman is in charge of getting more Democrats get elected and “flipping the House,” and he’s got his work cut out for him. He talks to Aimee about rethinking traditional campaigning, the challenge of defeating a party headed by pathological liar, and what the rising majority needs to do to assert its political power.

Episode transcript.

Aimee Allison, Teen Vogue

We are in the midst of primary season. With just a few months until the midterms, there is dramatic potential this year to elect a record number of women to office, including many black women and other women of color. There is also a great opportunity for women of color — along with other voters of color — to not only elect these leaders, but to take back this country by turning traditionally red states blue. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

“The Rainbow Coalition is like a quilt—many patches, many pieces, many colors, bound by a common thread.” I was in Atlanta, Georgia for the 1988 Democratic National Convention listening to Jesse Jackson describe his vision for how a multiracial and explicitly progressive coalition of people of color and progressive whites could lead Democrats to victory across the country. Although Jackson’s bid for the nomination fell short, the surprising success of his candidacy—he won 11 contests and nearly tripled his delegate total from 1984—revealed the potential of a campaign rooted in the country’s demographic revolution. Read more.

Season 3 | Episode 1

We kick off the return of season 3 of Democracy in Color podcast with a revealing interview with Tallahassee mayor and Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum on how he turned his idealism into action and his ultimate goal of turning his state blue for 2020.

Get beyond the talking points with political luminaries and get to the heart of how to build a political ecosystem that reflects the new American majority. First up: Tallahassee mayor and Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum.

Who is the New American Majority and what does it mean for the future of politics in the US? Tallahassee mayor and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum explains, “Black and brown voters became the majority of registered voters in the state of Florida...” Hear what that means for his red state and the country on this week’s episode of Democracy in Color with Aimee Allison.

Episode transcript.

Get ready for an all new season of the Democracy in Color Podcast hosted by Aimee Allison.

Aimee Allison, The New York Times

When early voting begins Monday in the Georgia primary campaign for governor, Stacey Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, may very well take a momentous step closer to becoming the first black woman in the nation to be elected governor. Ms. Abrams will have entered that office lifted by the political power of a multiracial coalition led by the Democratic Party’s most powerful voting bloc, black women. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

We have seen this movie before. Donald Trump is fanning the flames of white racial resentment. Many people are shocked and appalled. The poll numbers look bad for Republicans and good for Democrats. Not wanting to jeopardize their perceived prospects for victory, many in the Democratic leadership proceed cautiously and largely ignore the rampant racism, misogyny, and outright hatred spewing from Trump. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Conor Lamb’s apparent upset victory in a Pennsylvania congressional district that Donald Trump had won by nearly 20 points has intensified talk of a Democratic wave in 2018. Lamb’s win is, in fact, evidence that Democrats have an excellent opportunity to recapture control of Congress this year. But in order to do so, it is critical that party decision makers understand just what a wave is—and what it isn’t. Read more.

Steve Phillips, New York Times

The White House is assertively working to make America white again, and Democrats are too afraid to speak that truth. The aggressive pace of deportations of immigrants of color, the elimination of the DACA program protecting immigrant children and the proposals propounded by the anti-immigration voices in the administration will all have the undeniable effect of slowing the rapid racial diversification of the United States population. Despite this sweeping attempt at racial social engineering, few voices in progressive and Democratic circles are responding with the kinds of outrage that one would expect. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

If Donald Trump’s rise to the White House has proven anything, it’s that fear of immigrants is one of the dominant forces inside the Republican Party (fear of dark-skinned immigrants, to be more precise; Norwegians are apparently perfectly acceptable). This racism is what is driving GOP intransigence around the Dream Act, which an overwhelming majority of Americans support, leading to the January government shutdown—and possible another one in February. Read more.

Aimee Allison, Essence

This year is off to the races, and Black women continue to drive the political narrative as we look towards the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

The next few days will tell a lot about the conscience, courage and political calculus of congressional Democrats. With a Friday deadline looming for passage of a budget to keep the government open, this is the moment of peak leverage for the minority party. How that leverage is used—or squandered—will speak volumes about which issues and groups are seen as most important—and which can be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Read more.

Steve Phillips, New York Times

The Alabama special election for the Senate affirms that the coalition that elected and re-elected an African-American as president of the United States remains a majority of the country’s population. By combining a large and inspired turnout of voters of color with the meaningful minority of whites who consistently vote progressive — even in a state like Alabama — Democrats can win across the country. Read more.

Aimee Allison, The Hill

Let's be clear on who deserves gratitude for Tuesday night's Senate victory in Alabama: Black women.

For the first time in my 25 years of political advocacy and electoral work, the truth about the central role black women play in ensuring justice in this country is breaking through. Black women are the most loyal Democrats, with the highest consistent turnout of any race and gender. We win elections, period. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

The evidence is in from the 2017 elections, and the verdict is clear—the constituencies that twice voted to put a black man in the White House remain the majority in this country. Democrats spent a year wailing and navel gazing as they tried to figure out how to woo Trump supporters, but it turns out that the way to win is to mobilize the New American Majority—people of color and progressive whites. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

One simple statistic highlights the folly of much of the Democratic Party’s strategy and spending. If every person of color who voted for Hillary Clinton in Virginia last year turns out to vote in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest on November 7, Democrat Ralph Northam could win without getting a single vote from a white person. Not one. And yet most Democratic strategists and donors overlook and undervalue voters of color in general and African-American voters in particular. As a result, Democrats are at real risk of losing eminently winnable contests in Virginia this year, as well as in myriad races in 2018. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

Many people believe that the outcome of midterm elections depends on the ideological profile of the candidates who are running. Moderate candidates appeal to swing voters who might be rethinking their presidential vote, conventional wisdom goes. But the outcome of non-presidential year elections depends in large part on voter turnout. And this reality, combined with a new report from the Voter Participation Center and Lake Research, amounts to a bright, flashing warning sign for Democrats heading into the 2018 election cycle. Absent significant course corrections by progressives, the turnout of people of color and progressive whites is likely to fall dangerously low next year, scuttling the golden opportunity to recapture control of the body that can impeach a president. Read more.

Season 2 | Episode 10

Season 2 | Episode 9

Aimee Allison, The Hill

Democrats just unveiled a new platform they call “The Better Deal.” The name itself begs two questions: Better than what? And better for whom?

The platform makes a step toward economic populism with a broad commitment to enacting anti-trust measures to protect average people from abuses of concentrated corporate wealth and political power. The hope, presumably, is that the new platform will ramp up voter enthusiasm for the Democratic Party, whose months of anti-Trump messages have not increased Democratic voter enthusiasm. The platform closely resembles Hillary Clinton’s policy plan from her 2016 presidential campaign. But is it a better deal for people of color and does it specifically articulate their commitment to a politics of racial justice? Read more.

Steve Phillips, New York Times

The Democratic Party is at risk of repeating the billion-dollar blunder that helped create its devastating losses of 2016. With its obsessive focus on wooing voters who supported Donald Trump, it is neglecting the cornerstone of its coalition and failing to take the steps necessary to win back the House of Representatives and state houses in 2018. Read more.

Steve Phillips, The Nation

It is quite possible that Democrats are going to spend nearly $1 billion trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. By buying into a myth about why they lost in 2016, they are ignoring the underlying math about what really happened—misspending huge amounts of money, while setting themselves up to lose again in the critical contests to come. Read more.

Season 2 | Episode 8

Steve Phillips

Maybe now Democrats can start pursuing a strategy likely to actually win and finally bury the fanciful notion that Republican voters will abandon the monster in the White House. If tonight’s GA-06 special election proves anything, it’s that no amount of paid advertising and no amount of evidence of obstruction of justice (if not outright treason) will pry loose Republican voters. Fortunately, buried beneath the headlines is the empirical evidence that Democrats can take back the House in 2018 if they focus all their resources on mobilizing Democratic voters instead of trying to woo Republicans. Read more.

Season 2 | Episode 7

Steve Phillips, The Nation

The Georgia governor’s race presents a golden opportunity and a profound moment of truth for Democrats across the country. With House minority leader Stacey Abrams’s recent announcement that she’s formed an exploratory committee for the 2018 election, progressives can either capitalize on the country’s population trends and maximize their prospects for victory, or they can once again form a circular firing squad, lose the election, and block progress towards overcoming centuries of racial exclusion. Read more.

Season 2 | Episode 6

Season 2 | Episode 5

Season 2 | Episode 4

Steve Phillips, The Nation

If 84 percent of the people who voted Democratic in 2016 come back out and vote Democratic again in 2018, Democrats should be able to reclaim control of the House of Representatives. There is also a narrower path to recapturing control of the Senate, but that’s a topic for a future column (spoiler alert, the Senate path requires massive investment in and mobilization of Latinos in Nevada, Arizona, and Texas). The results of the special elections in Kansas and Georgia have highlighted the path to victory in House races, but in order to seize this opportunity, progressives must focus their time, energy, and money on organizing and mobilizing core Democratic voters rather than squandering precious time and resources trying to convince Trump voters of the error of their ways. Read more.

Season 2 | Episode 3

Season 2 | Episode 2

Season 2 | Episode 1

Season 1 | Episode 14

Steve Phillips, New York Times

The outpouring of outrage across the country in response to Donald Trump’s election has created a significant opening for flipping Republican-held House seats. This wave of progressive activism has found its way to the campaign coffers of Jon Ossoff, the leading Democrat in the Georgia congressional special election on Tuesday to fill the vacancy created when Tom Price joined Mr. Trump’s cabinet. Read more.

Season 1 | Episode 13 (part 2 of 2)

Steve Phillips, New York Times

The Democratic National Committee will choose its next leader on Saturday, and when it does it should choose a leader who will resist the pressure to pursue the wrong white people. Hundreds of articles have been written about the imperative of attracting more support from white working-class voters who supported Barack Obama in 2012 but then bolted to back Donald J. Trump. Read more.

Aimee Allison

Trump has been in office for just two weeks and already we are reeling daily with shock and awe from the onslaught of radical executive orders and actions, most of which have been targeted against people of color: banning refugees and legal immigrants from seven Muslim countries; the firing of top State Department staff and the acting Attorney General (who refused to use her authority to enforce the new anti-immigrant rules); an order to build the Dakota pipeline on Native lands; border patrol agents ignoring court stays to end the ban, and thinly veiled threats of war against Mexico and Iran. Read more.

Sharline Chiang

On Monday, January 23, Democracy in Color will host the only grassroots-organized Democratic National Committee chair candidates forum, and the only one focused on race.

This forum, which will be held in Washington, DC at George Washington University (and will be viewable live to those who register to watch it via livestream) will be presented in partnership with Latino digital network mitú and diversity hiring initiative Inclusv. All seven declared 2017 Democratic National Committee chairmanship candidates have confirmed their participation. (On the weekend of February 24, 447 voting DNC members will elect the new chairperson.) Read more.

Aimee Allison

I didn’t know what to expect when I boarded the flight to D.C. last Thursday for the Women’s March. But by the time I touched down, I knew that the Women’s March that was converging in a few hours was alive and vibrant and fierce. This movement of women, led by women of color and embracing a broad justice agenda, was the essential expression of our collective joy, love and energy. Read more.

Steve Phillips

Today, I am mindful of the words from the Sweet Honey in the Rock song, Ella’s Song — “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.” After last night’s election results, the admonition from that ode to the civil rights era are more pertinent than ever. The election results are a backlash against the changes associated with the demographic revolution and a blow to the movement for justice and equality, but if we who work for freedom recognize that this is a temporary setback on a centuries-long march towards justice and equality, we can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and move forward towards a new era of progress and justice. Read more.

Season 1 | Episode 12 (part 1 of 2)

Season 1 | Episode 10

Season 1 | Episode 11

Season 1 | Episode 9

Season 1 | Episode 8

Season 1 | Episode 7

Season 1 | Episode 6

Season 1 | Episode 5

Season 1 | Episode 3

Season 1 | Episode 4

Season 1 | Episode 1

Season 1 | Episode 2