IS ABORTION AN IMPORTANT
ISSUE FOR BLACKS IN THE
2024 ELECTION?
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The Democratic Party in North Carolina, and across the country, is facing the same challenge - the top of the national ticket is considered by many to be weak and unaccomplished. More importantly, traditionally loyal voting groups like African-Americans and young people feel that they are not being heard by the officials they elect.
With Republicans generating most of the election excitement because of their fealty to former President Donald Trump, and, according to USA Today, a November 2023 poll showing 22% of African-Americans in six battleground states supporting Trump, Democrats are left with but one issue that has proven, amid numerous challenges, to deliver at the polls.
Abortion.
62% of Americans, Pew Research shows, disagreed with the High Court after it struck down a woman’s right to choose in a controversial June 2022 landmark ruling. That decision, however, proved to be a boon for Democrats in Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio during the 2023 off-year elections, and most political observers believe the same magic will work again against Republicans in 2024.
In Ohio last Nov. 7th, voters approved a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights until 24-week viability. More than 8 in ten African-American voters, according to an NBC News exit poll, supported the measure.
In Virginia, where the Republican governor threatened to institute a 15-week abortion ban if his party took over the Democrat-controlled state Senate, he not only lost the Senate, but also the state House, based on strong Black voter turnout.
And in Kentucky, the Black Republican state attorney general there - endorsed by Donald Trump- was beaten by the incumbent white Democratic abortion rights supporting governor on the strength of the Black vote.
Still, despite those and other off-year successes, Black voting was off by ten percent during the previous 2022 midterms overall compared to the 2018 midterms, so observers are simply not certain whether African-American Democratic voters will indeed show up to the polls in 2024.
One thing research has shown, and that’s while African-Americans do support a woman’s right to choose in healthy numbers (more are accepting of it today than ever before polls show), not unlike other traditional Democratic groups like white women, abortion is not a singular issue with Blacks.
Infant mortality, access to affordable health care, economic turmoil, maintaining voting rights, improving education, stemming police brutality, gun violence and other issues also top the list of voting priorities for African-Americans.
But there is encouraging evidence for Democratic Party observers.
A September 2023 poll of black women nationally - The Democratic Party’s most loyal constituency - by the Highland Project, found that among their top three issues of concern was protecting reproductive freedom, including abortion rights.
African-Americans are projected to make up 14% of all eligible U.S. voters in 2024, according to Pew Research. As of 2022, North Carolina, with 1.8 million African-Americans, is one of the top eight states that comprise 52% of all eligible Black voters.
So with the Republican-led NC General Assembly last year passing a 12-week abortion ban, African-Americans, who make up the most loyal base of the state Democratic Party, are expected to be a large part of the strong voting coalition turning out this fall.
That means abortion could be an important election issue for African-American Democrats here as it is to the rest of the party at the polls. Still, the question is, will Black Democrats punish Republicans for limiting their reproductive freedom?
Who the next governor of North Carolina is will be determined by the answer to that question.
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JUDGE FAILS TO ISSUE
INJUNCTION AGAINST
SENATE VOTING MAP
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The federal judge hearing arguments against a NC state Senate redistricting map has thus far refused to stop it from being used in the 2024 elections.
Attorneys for two African-American plaintiffs who have filed suit against the Senate map drawn and approved by NC Republican legislative leaders say it does not allow Black voters in at least two Senate districts to elect candidates of their choice because the Black voting population there is deliberately “cracked” or diluted to prevent that from happening.
“The chance of a Black candidate winning …is highly, highly unlikely,” Edwin Speas, plaintiffs’ attorney, told Judge Dever.
Speas added that that violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Democrats were not allowed to have any input in how the Senate voting districts were drawn.
They asked Judge James Dever to issue an immediate injunction to stop the Senate voting map from being used during the upcoming 2024 elections, which begin with the March 5th Super Tuesday primaries.
Lawyers for the NC legislature, however, contend that race was not a factor in how the Senate redistricting map was drawn, and if the two Senate Districts in question - Districts 1 and 2 - are changed, that would alter the entire makeup of the Senate voting map. Defendants’ attorneys further argue that there wouldn’t be enough time to redraw and approve the state Senate map before the March 5th Super Tuesday primaries.
If that happened, Republicans could possibly lose their one vote supermajority veto-proof advantage in the state Senate.
Phillip J. Strach, attorney for Republican lawmakers, maintained that Democratic plaintiffs previously argued against race being used in drawing district maps.
“I guess the problem was Republicans kept winning the legislature,” Strach said.
Judge Dever was reluctant to do anything to stop Senate Districts 1 and 2 from being used in the redistricting map, saying that to do so would be “extraordinary.” He did not issue a ruling during the hearing, but is expected to rule at anytime within less than 60 days.
The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was petitioned to get involved in the case, but rejected that motion.
Judge Dever is refusing to move any faster than he feels he needs to, saying that plaintiffs had plenty of time since the NC legislature passed the Senate voting map last October to file suit, but for some reason, waited more than a month afterwards to do so.
This is just one of several federal lawsuits filed against the NC General Assembly’s 2023 redistricting plans.
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