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When Kamala Harris dropped out two weeks ago, it hit Cory Booker hard.
She may have been his rival in the race for the Democratic nomination, but her exit represented something bigger. If Harris — a friend of Booker’s and the only black woman in the race, who began her campaign with such promise — couldn’t make it to Iowa, what did it mean for him, a black man still in the fight but unable to qualify for the Democratic debate?
At
the heart of Booker’s dilemma is a larger question about the
Democratic Party and American politics: What if Barack Obama was not
just the first, but the only person who is not a white man to occupy
the White House for decades to come?
“That’s
a very real fear,” said Bakari Sellers, a prominent South Carolina
Democrat who supported Harris’ bid. It feels like the country has
taken a giant step backwards, he said. “It’s hard to answer the
question of, how did you go from Barack Obama to Donald Trump?”
Harris’
downfall, Booker’s struggles and Julián Castro’s single-digit
polling have caused Democrats across the party, and especially people
of color, to ask what’s led the party to this juncture, where all
the frontrunners are white, and most of them are male and in their
70s. In July, Democrats had the most diverse debate stage in history.
Five months later, all the participants are white except for Andrew
Yang, who cleared the bar by a single percentage point in one poll on
the final day to qualify.
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