2018 midterm results show black women go the polls at a higher rate than other voting blocs, except white women.

Stephanie Kendle, a 26-year-old Haitian-American teacher living in Royal Palm Beach, votes in every statewide election. She has not missed a primary or general election since she turned 18 in 2010.

“I vote to make a difference, to have my voice heard,” Kendle said. “We (my parents and I) fill out the little ballots they send home. We discuss it. We’re always watching the news."

Kendle and about 670,000 other black women achieved a historic milestone in Florida’s 2018 midterm election.

They voted at higher rates than white men or women under 65, the first time that has happened in recent years, a Palm Beach Post analysis of voter data shows.

Black women in Florida turned out at a rate nearly equal to that of white women in 2016 and 2018. While not as numerous as white women, Democratic Party officials across the country, as well as Gillum campaign officials and political organizers, acknowledge that black women are the bedrock of the party.

Non-elderly black women also cast ballots at higher rates in Florida’s 2018 midterm than black men and Hispanic men and women, voting records show. Andrew Gillum’s campaign, backlash to Donald Trump’s presidency, and an unprecedented effort to reach black women drove turnout among this heavily Democratic voting bloc.

Gillum, the first black major party nominee for governor, lost in November to Republican Ron DeSantis by fewer than 33,000 votes — about the population of Riviera Beach.

For some Democrats, the effort, like the results, fell short. But the party is learning from its mistakes and spending money to better reach minorities, state party Executive Director Juan Penalosa told The Post.

“In the past, the (party) has kept its money and focused on a few elections,” Penalosa said, “(We did) not distribute the wealth and if we want to empower communities of color we must do that.”

The party announced on March 20 it would spend $2 million to register 200,000 voters by the 2020 presidential primaries. Most of them will be minorities, Penalosa said. Gillum, amid speculation he would run for president, announced a similar effort to register 1 million voters in Florida.

Black women’s turnout grew

Still, the black female voter is a force in the Democratic Party.

More than four of five black women registered as Democrats in Florida, state records show. They account for one in six Democrats, or about 893,000 voters, close to the number of white male Democrats but far behind the nearly 1.5 million white women registered as Democrats.

Three out of five registered black female voters younger than 65 cast ballots in 2018. While white women of the same age had a slightly lower turnout.

Three-quarters of white women voters 65 and older voted, pushing white women’s overall rate slightly beyond that of black women.

Among younger voters, the gap favored black women. About 44 percent of 18- to 29-year-old black women and 40 percent of their white counterparts cast ballots in the midterms. About a third of men in that age range voted.

Those turnout rates for young women represent big leaps from 2012 and 2014, when one in four female voters under 30 — black and white — cast ballots, according to an analysis by University of Florida Professor Dan Smith.

In 2018, black women cast 1 in 12 votes in Florida, up from 1 in 13 two years prior.

Frustrated Democrats

The time is now, between elections, for the party to connect with leaders of organizations in black communities, such as churches, fraternities and sororities, party Vice Chairwoman Judy Mount said.

“Most African-Americans feel like the Democratic Party waits till the last minute” to appeal to black voters, she said.

But past neglect, Mount said, makes her wonder whether her party will follow.

Francesca Menes got so frustrated she resigned as the treasurer for the Florida Democratic Party. She said the party has long failed to reach out to black voters.

“The resources come to (black communities) last and it’s usually because of panic mode,” triggered by bad late-election poll numbers, Menes said.

When Menes approached Haitian-American radio stations to place ads for Democrats, she found that DeSantis and U.S. Senate candidate Rick Scott — both Republicans — already bought prime airtime, she said.

The Florida Democratic Party made no effort to hire someone to work with non-African-American black voters such as Creole-speaking Haitian-Americans and voters of Caribbean descent, Menes said.

The day of a gubernatorial debate at Broward College, Menes said, state party Chairwoman Terrie Rizzo called her for the first time that election season and asked the treasurer to attend.

“We were treated as afterthoughts,” Menes said.

Rizzo, who also is the Palm Beach County party chairwoman, could not be reached for comment.

“I’m cautiously optimistic the party is going to understand the value of this data (about black female turnout),” Menes said, “But if history is any indication … we don’t learn from our own mistakes.”

GOP outreach

Palm Beach County Republican Party Chairman Michael Barnett, who is black, said his party meets with leaders in local black communities year-round, such as pastors from Haitian-American churches and local Haitian radio station WPBR-FM.

The party helped bring then-Gov. Rick Scott to an annual Haitian evangelical event, Barnett said, and helped bring candidate Donald Trump to meet with community leaders in Little Haiti in Miami in 2016.

Republicans understand the growing influence of Haitian-American voters, Barnett said.

“We may have been negligent in past elections,” Barnett said, “But we don’t take the black vote for granted, not anymore.”

Because Republicans control the Legislature and hold many statewide elected offices, Barnett said, “It’s in your political interest to work with us and we are here to work with you.”

While the GOP is stepping up its game, Penalosa said the Democrats must do the same to reach minorities.

“We’re learning lessons from 2018 and, to be honest with you, over the past decade,” said Penalosa, who has been director since March 2018.

Florida Democrats will take part in Organizing Corps 2020, a national program that in Florida aims to recruit 200 young people — mostly nonwhite and non-straight — to help train organizers to register voters in their neighborhoods and make sure they vote.

The party plans to field those recruits from black colleges, Penalosa said.

The party also will give at least $400,000 in grants, starting April 15, to local Democratic groups that regularly register voters, Penalosa said.

The Gillum factor

While there is criticism on the party level, Gillum’s campaign certainly made black women a focus of its get-out-the-vote efforts.

Gillum’s campaign specifically targeted black women through events such as brunches and a party featuring sexy, bare-armed black actor, Kendrick Sampson.

The campaign’s organizing director, David Metellus, said the campaign targeted black women, unlike Democrat Charlie Crist’s campaign in 2014.

Gillum’s campaign hosted events such as a series of Miami-area brunches, Metellus said, including one with black CNN commentator Angela Rye.

Gillum would go to black women-hosted events attended by few other candidates, former Gillum spokesman Geoff Burgan said.

“We even brought in some eye candy,” Metellus said. Sampson from the HBO television series “Insecure” attended a Miami-area party with Gillum while wearing a pro-Gillum cutoff shirt.

“I think the overarching strategy to winning statewide elections is turning out black women,” Burgan said, “If we don’t do that, we lose.”

One important decision Gillum’s campaign made was appointing black women to top positions, Metellus said, such as National Black Justice Coalition CEO Sharon Lettman-Hicks and Democratic political advocate Akilah Ensley.

Gillum himself helped by talking about his incarcerated family members, West Palm Beach NAACP President Lia Gaines said.

“He knows he did well because other people supported him,” Gaines said, “But he also knows other people in his circle did not do well and we should be open to giving people second chances.”

Gillum’s “picture perfect” family also helped, said Sadie Dean, a political organizer in Tampa. “When we see a family like that together, and we see they’re strong and replicate our values, it’s somebody we want to push up, someone we want as examples of our communities.”

Outside efforts

Dean said she saw firsthand how fun efforts to reach black voters can work.

The 29-year-old works with Color of Change, a black political group founded in 2005 that boasts 1.4 million members and raises millions of dollars.

Color of Change started organizing black voters long before November, Dean said. In her case a brunch in early 2018 got her involved.

“I walk in and there’s this black woman with a DJ with this big, huge fro,” Dean said, “There’s these amazing pantsuits. I see all these black women around feeling good and dressed fancy. It removed anything that would have held me back and felt like — because I’m a little socially anxious — this is a safe space. These black women are interested in you.”

Brunch attendees, mostly college grads, planned events such as ice cream socials and canvassing neighborhoods during the election, Dean said, and they brought friends to future events.

Dean led black women in canvassing black neighborhoods, she said, because women in those places respond best to canvassers who look like them and come from the same area.

A similar political group, New Florida Majority, focuses on black and Hispanic women.

Workers for the Miami-based group show up in nonwhite communities year-round, not just during election season, Executive Director Andrea Mercado said.

For example, New Florida Majority bused formerly incarcerated women — mostly black — to Tallahassee in early March to advocate for a bill guaranteeing female prisoners access to sanitary products such as tampons, Mercado said.

Women working with the New Florida Majority dedicated nights and weekends in 2018 to telling friends, families and co-workers about voting, Mercado said. The group got the word out when they washed their clothes at laundromats, talking to fellow customers.

New Florida Majority’s canvassers were mostly women, Mercado said, as were the people who answered doors they knocked on.

In Palm Beach County, more than 50 local black churches partnered with Unify Palm Beach County, a black political group, to turn out more than 10,000 voters from those congregations, Boynton Beach Coalition of Clergy spokesman Rae Whitely said.

Unlike past elections, Unify encouraged church leaders in 2018 to tell their congregations to vote early and by mail, Whitely said.

The efforts by Color of Change, New Florida Majority and Unify were either non-existent or smaller in 2014.

The Trump factor

If the prospect of a high-achieving black man as governor excited black women, two years of Donald Trump angered them because of his misogyny and support of bigotry, said Broward Young Black Progressives President Amber Vaughan, 36.

“He was so reminiscent about the guy that likes to mash up on you at work,” Vaughan said, “So reminiscent of every pervy guy that we’ve come in contact with.”

Co-founder of anti-private prison group Dream Defenders, Phillip Agnew said, “(Black women) want to make sure his base is not elected to office.”

“Black women especially rightfully so, justifiably so, feel extremely under attack by the Donald Trump administration.”

Gillum campaign Deputy Finance Director Lindsey Pollard also cited Trump. After he was elected, she said, “All of a sudden (non-political people) want to write a check. All of a sudden they want to volunteer.”

The surge in black women voting was seen in other states around the nation. “We saw that in Alabama,” Agnew said.

When white Democrat Doug Jones won a special U.S. Senate election in 2017 in Alabama, about 1 in 6 voters were black women and 1 in 9 black men, Alabama exit polling showed, and virtually every black voter selected Jones.

In Georgia, Stacey Abrams tapped into political groups helmed by black women for her run for governor.

And while Gillum and Abrams came up short, voters elected five new black women to the U.S. House in 2018.

‘Leadership roles in family life’

Black women historically have been the foot soldiers in the civil rights movement, said Gaines, the West Palm NAACP president.

“That’s a tradition in the community,” Gaines said, ”Black women have leadership roles in family life and that spills over into civic life as well.”

Women in general vote at higher rates than men, with 61 percent of women and 58 percent of men statewide casting ballots in 2018.

Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said no good evidence explains this trend. She believes women feel a stronger need than men for a social safety net.

White women and white men voted at near equal rates but the turnout among black women was far higher in 2018 than it was for black men, 62 percent to 52 percent.

“I think black men have become complacent on relying on black women,” Vaughan said, “We’re tired of carrying elections.”

The men in Vaughan’s group try to recruit more men, she said, but most of her 30 or so volunteers are women.

Agnew, the Dream Defenders co-founder, said most attendees to the group’s meetings were black women. It was a struggle to recruit and retain men, he said.

Clarice Redding, a 29-year-old living outside West Palm Beach, said “In terms of education rates or success rates, we’re kinda leading that in our community so we tend to leave our black men behind.”

Redding, who voted in all but one general election since 2008, runs the anti-violence program Green Dot Palm Beach County and once worked for then-state Rep. Bobby Powell, D-West Palm Beach.

“There’s also a prevalent feeling among the black male community that voting doesn’t really change anything,” Agnew said, “I see that more among young black men who have been socially moved to the margins of society.”

Black women must know how policies affect their household budgets since they are often heads of their homes, Agnew said.

“My momma always voted,” Agnew said, “Black women, because of a lot of institutional issues, have to be the bedrock for household, for neighborhoods, for cities, for community organizations.”

cpersaud@pbpost.com

@chrismpersaud