One veteran Missouri Democrat said Sen. Claire McCaskill’s issues with black voters represent a “life-threatening situation.” | Jeff Roberson/AP Photo Elections 'You want our vote, come get our vote' There's palpable concern in Missouri and other states that the party failed to engage early and often enough with black voters.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A pair of Democratic activists reached out to Sen. Claire McCaskill’s campaign last week after hearing a growing concern in their community: that the Democratic incumbent was giving short shrift to black voters.

They requested a meeting, which took place Friday at the headquarters for the local chapter of a black sorority here, according to Shicagolyn Hams Scroggins, one of the activists. Ahead of the meeting, Hams Scroggins heard more grumbling: One person asked why McCaskill was making the rounds in the community so late. A second asked why the senator was showing up only now.


McCaskill stood before more than 100 African-American women who showed up, fielding questions on a range of issues including her presence in the community, according to women in attendance. McCaskill explained that she had spent time reaching out to rural Missourians who didn’t know her as well as those in the city, an explanation that was well received by the women in the room.

The concerns precipitating the event underline a critical question for McCaskill and Democratic candidates across the country: Can the party energize and turn out black voters in 2018 in ways it so spectacularly failed to do in 2016? National black political activists said the Democratic Party's failure to prepare for President Barack Obama's departure from the White House — and the drop-off in minority voting that was likely to follow — goes back years.

“Many people in the civil rights community not only warned them but advocated as far back as 2015 that the campaign and the party weren’t set up correctly, and we weren’t listened to,” said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League. “2016 was an absolute disaster.”

“You want our vote, come get our vote,” added Angela Lang, executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, a group that organizes black communities to create political power in Wisconsin. “In 2016, people took black votes for granted.” Hillary Clinton infamously did not visit Wisconsin during the general election campaign and lost the state by about 23,000 votes.

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In Missouri, conversations with nearly a dozen elected officials, activists and voters reveal a mixture of cautious optimism and concern about whether McCaskill has done enough to secure high turnout here in Kansas City and in St. Louis, which she will need to win a state President Donald Trump carried by nearly 20 percentage points. African-American turnout in Missouri — and Democrats’ advantage among black voters over the GOP — dropped slightly from 2012 to 2016.

Limited public polling has shown a tightly contested race between McCaskill and Josh Hawley, her Republican opponent.

Quinton Lucas, a city councilman who is running for Kansas City mayor next year, praised McCaskill's outreach to the community and said she's worked hard to resolve any issues. But despite her efforts, he said he still heard some complaints about her presence in the community, and he harbors some concern about African-American turnout next week.

“I’ll be absolutely honest, I’m worried about it right now,” Lucas said.

One veteran Missouri Democrat, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said McCaskill’s issues with black voters represent a “life-threatening situation.” Other Democrats say vocal criticism of McCaskill from African-American leaders early in the campaign cycle was fair but that she has worked hard to fix the problem, visiting churches and holding small events with prominent African-American officials in both cities, among other engagements.

In a brief interview at a local campaign office, McCaskill said she’s worked hard to earn support in African-American communities. Because Missouri is a large, diverse state, voters across the state are often disappointed they don’t see her more often, she said.

“I haven’t taken their votes for granted. We’ve done a massive effort in St. Louis and Kansas City, and I feel like I’ve got a really good working relationship with a whole lot of very important African-American leaders,” McCaskill said. “I think we’re going to have a really great turnout and great results in those communities.”

Kayla Reid, an activist in St. Louis, runs a grassroots organization with 30 organizers that plans to contact 30,000 voters in predominantly black neighborhoods before Election Day. Reid said she thought McCaskill focused excessively on trying to win over Republican voters at the expense of engaging with her Democratic base. But she said she still expects robust turnout by voters driven to the polls by local issues and opposition to Trump’s agenda.

“I think people understand that this moment is much bigger than Claire and they’re going to go vote,” Reid said.

African-American turnout will be critical in several other Senate races, most prominently in Florida, Tennessee and Indiana, as well as in gubernatorial races in Florida and Georgia, two states in which Obama will hold rallies in the final days before the midterms. And African-American progressive activists across the country say the national party appears to be taking their concerns more seriously this year than in recent election cycles, when, they say, white Democrats in D.C. just assumed being the party of Obama would be enough.

Democratic Party leaders have been full of self-reproach about their failure to reach African-American voters in 2016 and have vowed that 2018 will be different. “African-Americans — our most loyal constituency — we all too frequently took for granted. That is a shame on us, folks, and for that I apologize,” Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said this summer, a sentiment he has repeated across the country. “And for that I say, it will never happen again!”

Perez and others Democrats have highlighted their success in the Alabama Senate race last year as evidence of successful African-American engagement. There were concerns about black turnout prior to the election, but a significant surge from African-American voters helped propel Doug Jones to his improbable Senate victory there. Many Democratic strategists expect to see a similar surge next week in races across the country.

Democrats hold comfortable leads in Senate races in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, four states Clinton lost in 2016 after underperforming among African-American voters.

But the efforts by the national party — including the committees dedicated to winning House, Senate and gubernatorial seats — have been uneven, according to interviews with black organizers across the country.

The DNC has provided grants to state parties to hire organizers in African-American communities, including a $100,000 grant to Missouri’s state party earlier this year. The DNC also launched a “Seat at the Table” tour this summer to “organize and engage with black women."

But some say the Democratic Party is still falling short of its rhetoric.

“I don’t want to hear Tom Perez apologize one more time about the failure of the party,” Quentin James, the founder of Collective PAC, told Netroots Nation in August. “Black voters and black candidates are going to decide if the Democrats are going to win in November.”

James did not respond to a request for a follow-up interview.

The DNC’s “AfricanAmerican Dems” Twitter account has also been dormant, with no new posts since February, a perhaps inconsequential oversight but one that some activists said is symbolic. A DNC spokesperson said the lack of posts was intentional because “we don’t want to silo off communities anymore” despite the fact that many of the DNC programs — including "Seat at the Table" — are targeted at specific communities. The Twitter accounts for Hispanics and Asian voters went dormant months later.

The spokesperson added that “everything now goes out only through the Democrats‘ or Tom’s account,” referring to Perez.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Governors Association have largely left African-American outreach to individual campaigns, providing guidance and financial support. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee often touts a $25 million program targeting “base voters,” but that includes African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, millennials and women — essentially everyone except white men over 35.

The unevenness of these efforts, which stems partly from a lack of muscle memory when it comes to organizing African-American communities, has prompted several outside groups to step in to try to boost Democratic chances. BlackPAC and the Black Progressive Action Coalition announced this month that they’d be investing a combined $14 million to increase African-American turnout in the midterms, including in Missouri. Majority Forward, the nonprofit arm of Senate Majority PAC, a group aligned with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), has also invested in African-American turnout.

Hams Scroggins, the activist who organized the meeting with African-American women, said McCaskill was enthusiastically received at the event, discussing issues like health care, gun violence and the minimum wage. The group gave her a standing ovation at the end. Several activists and officials in Missouri said McCaskill's effort, combined with ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage and legalize medicinal marijuana, will boost African-American turnout.

On Sunday, McCaskill visited three prominent black churches here, several of which she has visited multiple times already. That evening, she went to several house parties in St. Louis with Wesley Bell, a black city councilman who won an upset against a three-decade incumbent in the August primary for St. Louis County prosecutor. This week, McCaskill will rally in St. Louis with former Vice President Joe Biden.

“That concern, at least in my mind, has been alleviated,” Bell said of McCaskill’s effort in the community. “She’s been out, she’s been visible.”

Leonard Marshall, 62, a black voter who attended a pro-minimum wage rally of McCaskill’s in Kansas City this weekend, signed up for a volunteer shift at the event. He called McCaskill a strong advocate for working people, but he also said she could do more in black communities.

“She has engaged," Marshall said, "but she can do better.”

