Women of color who are organizers on the ground testify that they were effective because they came from the same communities they were organizing. These independent community groups see women as the original influencers in the family and designed culturally informed programs for them. Those programs drew from the knowledge of existing networks and were used to help develop homegrown talent instead of simply relying on outside strategists who parachute into communities to extract surgical campaign victories

We also found that in 2018 voters were engaged beyond the ballot box. What looked to be an unprecedented number of Americans took to the streets, with communities of color especially active in grass-roots political activism and mass protests. Surveys from previous midterm years show protest participation typically hovers in the low single digits. But in 2018, an extraordinarily high estimate of 1 out of every 8 Americans engaged in protest politics. That figure was nearly 20 percent among African-Americans and Native Americans.

We are in a time of extraordinary challenges and opportunities for our democratic politics. At moments like this, people most directly impacted best understand the urgency for change and action. In 2018 women of color showed America what that urgency means in terms of political engagement.

Ninety-three percent of black women voters supported a Democratic House candidate as did 68 percent of Native American women, 76 percent of Latinas and 73 percent of Asian-American and Pacific Islander women. This does not bode well for the incumbent president.

Mr. Trump’s re-election strategy is focused on energizing his base of disaffected white men. And with white women evenly split between Republicans and Democrats , we would do well to heed the potential for women of color to decide the outcome of the 2020 election.

In other words, steering away from the divisive rhetoric and vitriol is the right thing for both major political parties to do in 2020. So is investing in women of color. To do so, donors should fund work in ways that are not episodic, chaotic or project-based, which is now the status quo. Instead, they ought to provide multiyear, general operating grants that allow women of color to develop leadership skills, execute culturally informed approaches and learn and grow in other ways. Organizations led by women of color are chronically underfunded and expected to produce measurable outcomes in a short time.

Moreover, we know very little about how to engage women of color in politics. We need to support more research, more innovation and greater improvements to existing voter contact tools. And we need to focus on protecting voting rights as voter suppression continues. Finally, people working in civic engagement must help create infrastructure, the formation of durable groups that are led by women of color and that are in the fight for the long term. We urgently need this. Our democracy itself is at stake.