Holmes Set to Make History

Jessica Holmes, former Wake County commissioner, is seeking to dethrone the “Elevator Queen,” Cherie Berry in her bid to become North Carolina’s next labor commissioner. But perhaps more importantly, Holmes is simultaneously running to be the state’s first African-American woman to hold a position on the Council of State.

The Council of State refers to statewide elected positions such as governor, attorney general, state commissioners, and treasurer. It excludes judicial positions such as a justice on the state Supreme Court. Historically, African-American women have never held one of these positions, says IndyWeek. Many have run previously, and a few have held or currently hold positions in the state legislature, but none have been elected to these Council of State positions.

This seemingly impossible trend is made even more staggering given the population demographics of the state. According to CensusReporter, 37 percent of the state population is made-up of minorities, and nearly two-thirds of that figure is composed of African-Americans. Additionally, a little more than half of North Carolina’s population are women.

Can this all be attributed to partisanship? Pew Research says that, among adults, 79 percent of North Carolina’s black population votes Democrat whereas 52 percent of its white population votes Republican. With a Republican led legislature, it may not be surprising that there are few people of color who hold office. In fact, the Republican caucus in North Carolina’s House and Senate are exclusively white.

This follows a national trend. According to the Center for American Women and Politics, of the 535 members currently serving in the 116th U.S. Congress, only 47 are women of color, and 46 other those representatives are Democrats. Even when compared to other states, North Carolina is only slightly behind. There are 311 statewide elected offices and only 17 of those positions are held by women of color. Democrats occupy three-fourths of those seats.

Though partisanship may play a factor in this representation issue with Democrats proving far more likely to elect women of color, race also proves to be a separate issue demonstrated by the comparatively dire lack of representation across the board. The issue of race and gender affects not only who is elected, but also who even chooses to run. While there are likely innumerable small reasons as to why this lack of representation persists for African-American women, two major reasons seem to rise to the top: who runs for election and who gets elected. Firstly, African-Americans who run for election are dependent upon the turnout of their own ethnic group as elections have routinely demonstrated the white voters are unlikely to vote for black candidates. But perhaps more nuanced is the issue of who chooses to run. African-Americans and women as groups are each less likely to run for office than white individuals or men.

In terms of institutional barriers, there are a number of factors that prevent women of color from running for office. Particularly in the South, there is a strong history of voter suppression, intimidation of minorities and disenfranchisement that discourages interest in positions of power by minorities. Beyond simply being discouraged, the imprisonment rate of the black population proves highly consequential in elections given that a significant portion of the population is disenfranchised from voting. According to the ACLU, one in 40 black men in North Carolina were imprisoned as of 2016. This also impacts how frequently candidates of color who do choose to run are elected.

Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat who lost her 2018 bid for governor, points to campaign finance laws as another critical barrier to electing women of color. “The answer is to fix the infrastructure,” Abrams told a White House reporter, “so that the candidates who win are not the candidates with the deepest pockets but the ones with the deepest message.”

Particularly for the Democratic party, women of color have proved a critical demographic to the success of elections. But in recent years, women of color who choose to run for office claim that the party establishment has stood in the way. Even in the most recent primary run for U.S. senate, Erica Smith claimed that Democrats did not want a black woman to run, evidenced by the $12 million spent by Democratic groups to support her white male opponent, Cal Cunningham.

According to The Atlantic, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee prefers to back candidates who “can show they have strong community support and enough funds to stay afloat on their own.” This proves difficult for women of color. These minority candidates often struggle to raise as much money for their campaigns because they represent less wealthy communities. 

When Linda Coleman lost her bid for office in North Carolina’s 2nd district in the general election of 2018, she expressed her frustration with this system, “The biggest challenge is raising money. We usually represent less affluent communities. The network differs,” said Coleman to a News & Observer reporter, “We’re expected to do the same job. The money drives the message, so we obviously have a very difficult time navigating that terrain. There’s a racial gap and a gender gap for black women.”

Aside from the institutional barriers that often prevent women of color from running for office, there are also psychological barriers. Often, minority candidates view themselves as less qualified and less electable than white men. Even in cases where candidates of color are equally qualified given their education, prior experience, and resources, they are less likely to expect to win when compared to white candidates.

According to Paru Shah’s research, “It Takes a Black Candidate,” perhaps the largest barrier for candidates of color comes because so few minorities have been elected. In this self-perpetuating cycle, black candidates who would run for office choose not to because they are wary of being the first to break down this barrier. “In the process of attaining descriptive representation,” says Shah, “the initial "hurdle" of attaining the first black representative is the hardest to overcome.”

Jessica Holmes not only faces the barriers that minorities do, but also those of women. North Carolina as a whole is made up of 51.3 percent female residents, but only 26 percent of seats in the General Assembly are held by women. This means that the makeup is far from reflecting the demographics of the state. 

Lillian’s List is a North Carolina based organization dedicated to resolving this imbalance by electing progressive women. Executive director Sarah Preston says one reason women don’t run is because of the structure of campaigns themselves, “The structure of campaigning and serving was built to benefit men and without women in mind. Women are recruited to run for office by political parties and others in the political establishment at a lower rate than men.”

FiveThirtyEight says another factor in this lack of representation may be because the transition from multi-member districts to single-member districts limits female representation. Research suggests that women are more likely to run in multi-member districts. Additionally, parties may feel more pressure to put women on a ballot when there is more space to appeal to a wide-range of voters. There is also a shift in the style of campaigning associated with multi-member districts, moving from attacks to self-promotion.

While these barriers create an uphill battle, it is critical to recognize the importance of electing minority representatives. In Shah’s aforementioned research, she also demonstrated that elections have routinely proven that minority candidates receive the support of their coethnic voters simply for the sake of descriptive representation. This is not to denigrate the importance of descriptive representation, however. On the contrary, in recent elections, the value of identity politics is becoming more and more recognized. Candidates who have a common experience with a certain group of voters can empathize and bring to light issues that may not otherwise be brought up.

For example, Jessica Holmes is campaigning on a platform that supports workers. She says, “I am ready to fight for livable wages, safe and healthy work environments and family-friendly policies. North Carolina workers deserve an advocate that puts them first every day.” Clearly passionate about the position, Holmes considers herself a champion for workers. This position likely garners her much support from working class voters, many of whom are minorities.

Arguably, however, the most critical determinant that impacts the success of minority campaigns is difficulties raising money. As of the 2019 year-end campaign donation filings, Holmes has received $129,647 in donations. Comparatively, her opponent, Republican Josh Dobson, has raised $60,990. The direction of this imbalance is unusual, though it is important to note that Holmes ran unopposed in the primary campaign whereas Dobson competed against two challengers.

When examining Holmes’ home county, Wake, her biggest yield comes from the 27604 zip code, which donated $13,000 to her campaign. This area comprises much of northeast Raleigh and has a population where one-third of its registered voters are black. In comparison, this population percentage is 1.5 times more than the rate of the entire state.

But the expected trend of minority voters providing the most money for a minority candidate doesn’t prove true. The above area appears to be an outlier, and the next eight highest donation amount areas all have populations of black voters under 20 percent. It is possible, however, that black voters are unable to contribute as much monetarily compared to their white counterparts because African-Americans are typically less wealthy. Instead, black voters make more individual contributions in smaller amounts.

This proves true when examining the number of donors in each zip code. Jessica Holmes is receiving the majority amount of her monetary support from areas with high populations of white residents, however, the areas with the highest number of donors tend to be those with higher percentages of registered black voters. Essentially, more black voters are donating less money. Though an outlier rests in the Raleigh Five Points area (27608 zip code), which is only made up of two percent of black voters but has the third highest number of donors, there is a marked incline in the number of donors after the percentage of black voters in an area rises above 20 percent.

The southeast Raleigh area (27610), has the highest percentage of registered black voters in Wake County as well as the fourth highest number of donors who contributed to the Holmes campaign. The average donation in this area was $92 compared to the highest average donation coming from an area in north Raleigh (27614) at $1,327.

When looking at this data in contrast to her opponent, there is a clear divide. Dobson has not received a single donation from the 27610 zip code. He has the most donors from northwest Raleigh, an area with a population made up of only 12 percent black registered voters. Dobson has also received the most amount of money from this same district, where the average contribution was $1,688.

An important consideration in understanding this information is understanding how this data was collected. Importantly, campaign finance reports are not required to release a donor’s personal information so long as their individual contributions to the campaign for an election cycle remain under $50. This greatly limits our understanding of the impact that small donors are having on this election cycle. For example, Jessica Holmes received 211 donations under the $50 benchmark whereas Josh Dobson received 12. In understanding which demographics are donating to each campaign, this is critical missing data.

Despite all the obstacles that stand in their way, black female candidates have been stepping up more and more in recent election cycles. In the race to break the glass ceiling during this 2020 election, Jessica Holmes does not stand alone. Current state representative Yvonne Lewis Holley, a Democrat, is running for lieutenant governor against Republican businessman Mark Robinson. Both women are poised to make history as the first African-American women to be elected to the Council of State.