Ayanna Pressley is on the fast track to becoming the first black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts. This is only the latest example of the Democratic Party’s renewed enthusiasm for diversity and liberal politics, as a recipe for success in the Trump era.
Pressley’s upset victory against Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano in Tuesday’s primary sets the stage for Pressley to represent an area once served by Tip O’Neill and John F. Kennedy. The win comes at the very end of a primary season in which black politicians have been repeatedly succesful.
In Connecticut, Jahana Hayes is lined up to become the state’s first black woman to win a congressional seat in November. And black politicians in three states — Florida, Georgia and Maryland — have won the Democratic nomination for governor, in a country that has only elected two black governors.
“This is a fight for the soul of our party and the future of our democracy,” she told reporters. “This is a disruptive candidacy, a grassroots coalition. It is broad and diverse and deep. People of every walk of life.” Greeting voters at a Boston polling station, Pressley also spoke of “the ground shifting beneath our feet and the wind at our backs.”
