The changing face of Democrats

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina, ran under the campaign slogan: "It's time for one of us." Photo / AP

The newest star of the Democratic Party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, launched her New York congressional campaign by declaring "women like me aren't supposed to run for office" — a jarring embrace of her distinction as a 28-year-old Latina less than a year removed from a tipped job tending bar.

Her campaign slogan: "It's time for one of us." That appeal to the tribal identities of class, age, gender and ethnicity turned out to be a good gamble, steering her this week to the nomination in a year when Democratic voters are increasingly embracing diversity as a way to realise the change they seek in the country.

Given an option, Democratic voters have been picking women, racial minorities and gay and lesbian candidates in races around the country at historic rates, often at the expense of the white male candidates who in past years typified the party's offerings. Ocasio-Cortez's opponent, veteran representative Joseph Crowley, a white man representing a majority-minority district, fit that bill.

The divide is more stark than any other so far in the primary season, and it reflects the party's growing dependence on female and minority voters.

The ideological splits between liberal and far-left candidates were predicted to be the focus of clashes this year, but voters have sent conflicting signals on that front.

The tribal trend has implications for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, where a historic number of nonwhite and female candidates are considering launching campaigns, including senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.

They will likely face off against a cadre of more traditional white male candidates, including possible bids by former Vice-President Joe Biden and former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.

"The ideological part is only a very small piece. There is something deeper going on," said Simon Rosenberg, a strategist at the New Democratic Network. "In this new social media age of politics, compelling, authentic candidates who can tell positive stories about themselves are succeeding over lifer politicians."

At a rally in Nevada last weekend, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, another potential 2020 contender who never fails to mention her own hardscrabble childhood in Oklahoma, got cheers when she let slip that she wanted to see a woman occupy "that really nice, oval-shaped room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue".

Many of the key Democratic House primaries this year have been competitions over biography, with a premium given to those who break new ground or remove old barriers.

House nominees in key races to unseat Republicans include a black former NFL player turned lawyer, a female retired fighter pilot and a lesbian Air Force intelligence officer, all of whom defeated more conventional opponents.

Joseph Crowley was widely seen as heir apparent to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Photo / AP

"You don't want to run against a Democratic woman this year," Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth said on Thursday about the trend, citing the House primary in Kentucky won by that former fighter pilot. "Amy McGrath defeated a two-term mayor with a 70 per cent approval rating. She did that because she was a fresh face who tapped into the new energy out there."

This proved the case again in New York on Wednesday, when Ocasio-Cortez toppled Crowley, one of the most powerful Democrats in the nation and one widely seen as heir apparent to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

On the same night, upstate in the Catskill mountains, Antonio Delgado, an Oxford- and Harvard-educated African American lawyer, emerged from a crowded field of six white Democratic candidates, some of them more liberal, for the chance to take on Republican John Faso in one of the most competitive House elections this cycle.

In Maryland, Democrats nominated Ben Jealous, the African-American former head of the NAACP, making him the second black gubernatorial nomination this year, following former Georgia statehouse leader Stacey Abrams' win last month.

There have been only two African-Americans elected governor in the 50 states in recent history — and at least two more black Democratic candidates, in Florida and Wisconsin, have a chance to win nominations.

Through to the end of June, 151 women have won House Democratic primaries, nearly doubling the 81 female nominees at the same point in the 2016 cycle, according to data collected by the Centre for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University. Republican nominations of women rose much more slowly, to 32 in 2018 from 27 in 2016.

"Historically, what we have seen, which could also be true in this cycle, is the association of women with something different, something new and something that represents change," said Kelly Dittmar, a professor at the centre.

"In this year, women provide one of the starkest contrasts to the President and the party in power in Washington."

For some Democrats, there is a clear logic to trying to elevate politicians who belong to under-represented groups, given the threat many feel from the behaviour and policies of President Donald Trump, who regularly magnifies racial division and has been caught on tape boasting about the sexual assault of women.

"It's not accidental that Donald Trump followed the first black president riding a wave of resentment," said Steve Phillips, founder of Democracy in Colour, a group that promotes youth and minority political activism.

"And it's not accidental that the people who are fighting back are the people who are being attacked."

Polls show that Democrats generally place a far higher value on racial, ethnic and national diversity than Republicans. A Pew Research survey in late April found that 58 per cent of Americans say increasing numbers of people from different groups makes America a better place. That included 70 per cent of people who identified with the Democratic Party and only 47 per cent who identified with Republicans.

Ocasio-Cortez, who calls herself a democratic socialist, ran on the left edge of her own party, endorsing many of the most liberal policies in circulation, including an abolition of the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Medicare for all, and a programme to guarantee government jobs at US$15 ($22) an hour for all Americans.

Crowley, who has his own liberal record and co-sponsored a Medicare-for-all bill, countered by calling ICE "fascist" and saying he wanted reforms without abolishing the agency.

But policy was not the clear dividing line in the race.

Ocasio-Cortez spent much of the campaign, including much of the only one-on-one debate, focusing on Crowley's decision to take money from corporate donors and raise his kids in Virginia while he worked at the US Capitol. She argued throughout the campaign that Crowley "doesn't drink our water or breathe our air".

Two years after Crowley was elected to the state legislature in the late 80s, Queens County, where he was born, was about 58 per cent white, according to the 1990 Census.

Today, it is 48 per cent white, according to census figures. The district he represents, which includes parts of the Bronx, is 18 per cent white.

"I think the district has changed very dramatically, and I think that she, from her ideas to her diversity, I mean she really reflects her district," Booker said in an interview on Thursday.

Several of the outside groups working to recruit and train candidates for the Democratic ticket have placed a premium on finding women and minorities. Amanda Litman, co-founder of the candidate training and support organisation Run for Something, said candidates who broke the white-male mould were doing better because voters want to support people like themselves.

"The candidates that do the best are the ones who are most representative of their communities, and that's women and people of colour," she said. "They're able to represent their voters in an authentic way, much more powerful than gender or any other single factor."

Maurice Mitchell, the new national director of the liberal Working Families Party, said electing more diverse candidates was "part of my mandate". Earlier this year, he became the first black man to lead the organisation, which began as a left-wing political party and has grown into an organising force for liberal candidates and set out to elect more
nonwhite leftists.

"This is where the energy is. This is where our most idealistic thinking and strategising on the ground is," he said. "We want to break up the idea that the way you get folks elected is choosing middle-of-the-road white male business owners and veterans to run — people who will only say and do the most scripted things that polarise the least people."