Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the exact kind of Democrat I usually criticize. She’s been in Congress for more than 20 years, done nothing particularly remarkable or courageous during that time, did a disastrous job of running the Democratic National Committee in 2016 by pouring gasoline on the Hillary-versus-Bernie fire, and disingenuously suggested that Joe Biden was a strong candidate even after his horrible debate performance two years ago. I never imagined writing a piece in defense of her. Yet here I am. Democrats and Black Americans desperately need to rethink our approach to racial politics, and Wasserman Schultz has accidentally ended up on the right side of some critical questions.
Here’s the story. Wasserman Schultz’s political life was upended a few weeks ago when Florida Republicans further gerrymandered the state. The GOP is aiming to win 24 of Florida’s 28 U.S. House seats, four more than they have now. So they shifted the South Florida communities that comprise the 25th district that Wasserman Schultz represents in a way that turns the electorate from one that Kamala Harris won by about five percentage points in 2024 to one Harris lost by nine. The elections website Planscore estimates that a Democrat has about a 20 percent chance of winning the new version of the 25th district. Such a victory would be particularly hard for Wasserman Schultz, a sharp-elbowed partisan who has done little to appeal to centrist voters.
So Wasserman Schultz, 59, has opted to run in Florida’s 20th district. Under the new maps, Harris won that district by around 37 points in 2024, according to estimates from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. PlanScore puts the odds of a Democrat winning there at over 99 percent. So whoever wins the Democratic primary on August 18 will almost certainly head to Capitol Hill.
Here’s the conundrum. Both the old and new versions of the 20th district have sizable Black populations. Many of these communities were long represented by Alcee Hastings, who is Black and served in the House from 1993 to 2021. Hastings was succeeded by another Black politician, Shelia Cherfilus-McCormick. The congresswoman held the seat until this April, when she resigned from the House because she was likely to be expelled after being indicted for allegedly stealing federal disaster relief funds and using them for her campaign. The 20th district seat is currently vacant.
Many Democrats in Florida say that at a time when Republicans are using the Supreme Court’s recent Louisiana v. Callais ruling to eliminate majority-Black districts and effectively expel African Americans from Congress, a white pol like Wasserman Schultz shouldn’t be running in a seat that has traditionally been held by a Black politician. The Black Caucus in Florida’s state legislature called Wasserman Schultz’s decision to run in the 20th district “disheartening.” A group of 10 Florida DNC members, some Black and some not, released a letter blasting Wasserman Schultz in fiery terms. They said her district choice “reinforces the same message Republicans have pushed for years: that Black representation does not matter.”
“Our party cannot credibly denounce the dismantling of Black political power by Republicans while treating one of Florida’s few remaining majority-Black districts as a political opportunity for an incumbent seeking a safer seat,” they added. “We cannot claim to defend voting rights, racial justice, and representation while undermining Black political power when it becomes politically convenient.”
Wasserman Schultz has argued that she can bring more money home to the 20th district than a newly elected member because of her seniority. And she emphasizes her long-standing relationships with Black leaders and support of Black organizations in Southern Florida. That’s all true. Let’s not ignore the obvious, though: She isn’t running in the 20th district on some altruistic mission to help Black people in South Florida, but rather because it’s the easiest way to continue her political career.
That said, I don’t want the congresswoman to stand down. Wasserman Schultz’s candidacy embodies two important principles worth defending. First, Black voters should get the chance to choose the candidate who they feel best represents them, whatever that person’s race. The new 20th district is about 40 percent Black. So it’s likely that the Democratic primary electorate is majority Black. A successful candidate will have to convince Black voters that they will advance the interests of African Americans on Capitol Hill.
What’s happening in Florida’s 20th district is much different than in Louisiana and Tennessee, where heavily Democratic, majority-Black districts are being replaced by ones that have Republican majorities. The Republicans in those districts will likely be elected with almost no Black support and therefore feel no need to represent their Black constituents. In contrast, if Wasserman Schultz or another non-Black person wins this seat, they will have to keep their Black constituents top of mind–or risk losing when they run for reelection. Black people aren’t losing their political voice if they are the biggest voting bloc in a heavily Democratic district and elect a non-Black person.
Several Black candidates are running in the 20th, so voters there will have a chance to elect a Black congressperson if they want.
And this leads to the second important principle here: We need to rethink the assumption that a Black politician will obviously represent Black voters better than a non-Black one. Black Americans would obviously be better off if anti-government archconservatives such as Senator Tim Scott were replaced by non-Black Democrats. But the Florida Black Caucus and the Florida DNC members are hinting that a Black Democrat congressperson would push Black interests harder than a white Democratic congressperson.
I am not so sure. During the 2020 Democratic primaries, the candidates with the policy agendas that would most help Black Americans pay for health care, afford college, and otherwise thrive were Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, not Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Deval Patrick. Joe Biden’s administration prioritized policies to advance racial equality much more than Barack Obama’s did. Zohran Mamdani’s affordability agenda will do much more for Black New Yorkers than the cronyism and corruption of his predecessor, Eric Adams.
As political scientist Jake Grumbach and I argued in a recent piece, racial politics have changed dramatically in the last two decades. Harris, Obama, and other Black politicians can reach the highest offices, but to woo white voters, they have to constantly signal that they are not too progressive or overly tied to Black people. That means they are more reluctant than many of their non-Black counterparts to push the policies necessary to reduce America’s deep racial inequality.
Today’s Black members of Congress aren’t like their predecessors, who were often veterans of the Civil Rights Movement and viewed advocating for Black people as their primary goal. Many of them instead are fixated on getting into Democratic leadership, chairing a committee, or simply holding onto their seats as long as possible. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushes lots of policies that would help average Black Americans, while her New York–area colleague, Ritchie Torres, who is Black, is most known for his passionate defenses of the Israeli government.
Also, embedded in the arguments for a Black member is the notion that there is a singular Black political community or Black political ideology that such a person would try to advance on Capitol Hill. But the Black electorate is not a monolith. The fissures between progressive, center-left, and center-right Black voters are clearer than ever. My mom and I often support different candidates in Democratic primaries. (I prefer the most progressive ones.) Black progressive voters in a given district might prefer a white progressive over a Black centrist; Black centrists might back a white centrist in a competitive primary.
I’m all for greater representation of Black people (and other underrepresented groups) in corporate America, media, and of course politics. It was important and long overdue when Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. It would obviously be bad if no African Americans were serving in the House. But a non-Black person elected by Black people to serve in Congress isn’t a tragedy, a sign of democratic decline, or a diminution of Black political power. It might even be a coup for those Black people, if that person is an excellent member of Congress.
Based on what she’s previously done in Congress, I’m pretty sure that Wasserman Schultz won’t be an excellent member. But the way to get excellent members in the 20th district and other heavily Black areas is to have competitive primaries where Black and non-Black candidates compete, not to shame Wasserman Schultz and other non-Black candidates from running in the first place. I want Black members of Congress. But what we really need is members of Congress of all races who make life better for Black people—and everyone else too.
