‘A slap in the face’: Black Democrats blast Wasserman Schultz campaign

Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., has called Florida’s 20th Congressional District “the seat that Black history built.”

But following aggressive midcycle redistricting by Republicans, it may become something else. That’s because Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an 11-term congresswoman and former Democratic National Committee chair, has launched a bid for the vacant seat after her current district was altered to lean more Republican.

Wasserman Schultz, who is white, is now running for the seat based in the southeastern part of the state, which has been represented by a Black lawmaker for more than 30 years. She is competing against four other Democrats, all of whom are Black, and has a good shot of winning in a seat that is expected to stay in Democratic hands.

Much of the Black Democratic establishment isn’t happy about it.

“She decided that she was going to come for a safe seat that has always had Black representation. It’s like, why would you do that?” Magic Howson, political director of the Broward County Democratic Black Caucus, told MS NOW. 

Armando Grundy-Gomes, president of the Democratic Black Caucus of Florida, has personally endorsed another candidate, 27-year-old progressive Elijah Manley. (His organization doesn’t endorse under its bylaws.) He wishes Wasserman Schultz wasn’t running at all.

“Our preferred candidate would be anyone other than Debbie Wasserman-Schultz,” Grundy-Gomes said. He alleges that he reached out to the congresswoman last month and she hung up on him, a charge she denies.

“Debbie Wasserman Schultz does not seem to want to communicate,” Grundy-Gomes explained.

The area comprising the 20th District has been represented by a Black Democrat — former Rep. Alcee Hastings, who served until he died in 2021 — since the early 1990s. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, also Black, was elected in 2022 but resigned from the seat in April just minutes before a House Ethics Committee hearing was set to release the findings of a two-year investigation into allegations that she misused federal Covid-19 relief funds for her 2021 congressional campaign.

Cherfilus-McCormick is running again and accused Wasserman Schultz of “forum shopping” in the “Black access district” at a June 17 debate.

Local Black Democrats say hanging on to the 20th District is even more significant now amid mounting threats to future Black representation in Congress after an aggressive Republican effort — led by President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — redrew Florida’s map in a way that may hand four House seats to the GOP.

The map changes followed the Supreme Court’s decision narrowing the Voting Rights Act. An analysis conducted by the voting-rights advocacy group Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter estimated that the ruling could lead to the loss of up to 30% of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“While the Republicans are trying their hardest to silence Black voices, I don’t expect somebody in our own party — a white Democrat — to do the same,” Manley said at the June 17 debate.

Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., the chair of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, told Politico that “it’s a painful situation … to have a beloved colleague who made a decision basically to run in a district where historically there’s been CBC representation, and I know that the community has been really disrupted by it.”

Public polling shows no clear front-runner in the race. And while some local Black community leaders have encouraged Black Democrats in the race to coalesce around a single candidate to prevent splitting the vote, that effort failed, according to Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor and state Rep. Felicia Robinson, who chairs the Florida Legislative Black Caucus. (Pryor was acting — and speaking to MS NOW — in his personal capacity, a spokesperson said.)

Wasserman Schultz has downplayed the role of race in the contest, arguing that her experience makes her the strongest candidate and pointing to what she calls a career-long “commitment to diversity.” But several local Black Democratic leaders characterize her decision to run for a seat that Black lawmakers have held for decades as tone-deaf.

Robinson, the state lawmaker who’s chair of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus, said she tried — and failed — to speak with Wasserman Schultz prior to her campaign announcement to tell her the caucus believed she could win if she ran in the 22nd District, where she lives.

“I thought that, strategically, it would’ve been best for [her] to run in that seat to ensure [Democrats] could get it,” Robinson said.

A spokesperson for Wasserman Schultz said the call from Robinson came the night before the congresswoman’s planned announcement.

Robinson said she saw Wasserman Schultz’s decision to instead run in the 20th as “somewhat selfish” and “disrespectful.” 

“It makes me question how much of an ally you truly are,” Robinson added. “For the African American community, I feel like it’s a slap in the face.” 

In a lengthy statement provided to MS NOW, Wasserman Schultz said that she spoke with more than 100 local leaders before deciding to run, and that she only launched her campaign “after receiving overwhelming support in those conversations, and because I raised my family in Broward [County], and represented Broward in elected office for my whole adult life.”

Wasserman Schultz argued that if she didn’t run in the 20th District, she would contribute to “cracking and diffusing” Democrats’ power in Broward County because the only candidates running would be Republicans or inexperienced Democrats.

She also touted her experience, including her role on the House Appropriations Committee, while a campaign spokesperson cited the support she has received from local Black leaders including the organization Bless Broward, an influential group of local clergy members.

Hastings’ daughter, Maisha Williams — who used to work for Cherfilus-McCormick and mounted her own campaign for the seat before dropping out in June — told MS NOW she supports Wasserman Schultz’s candidacy.

“She worked very closely with my father. She’s done so much for the Black community … she’s absolutely the best,” Williams said.

“If it’s going to be a Black face [in the seat], it has to be a qualified Black face,” she continued. “We don’t have that.”

Cherfilus-McCormick is the Black candidate in the race who arguably has the most name recognition, but she has troubles of her own. Following a federal indictment brought last November on charges of stealing federal disaster relief funds, she is set to go to trial in February 2027 and faces more than 50 years in prison if convicted.

Cherfilus-McCormick has pleaded not guilty and alleged the charges are “politically motivated”— despite the fact that the Justice Department began its investigation of her under the Biden administration, court documents show, and the bipartisan House Ethics Committee found “clear and convincing evidence” she violated 25 ethics rules.

Howson, from the Broward County Democratic Black Caucus — which has endorsed another candidate in the race — said that while some locals believe Cherfilus-McCormick should not be running, it’s not necessarily because they believe she’s guilty.

“People believe it’s politically motivated and they don’t want to see her punished for something she didn’t do,” Howson said. “They’ve already tried to convict her in the court of public opinion, but the people here don’t really believe that, and they believe that she needs to focus on defending herself.”

Cherfilus-McCormick did not respond to repeated requests for comment and a list of several detailed questions from MS NOW.

Other candidates running in the Democratic primary include Luther Campbell, the rapper from 2 Live Crew with no political experience, and Dale Holness, a real estate broker who served as mayor of Broward County and a member of the Broward County Commission.

Four candidates are competing in the Republican primary on the same day, but the Cook Political Report characterizes the district as solidly Democratic.

Wasserman Schultz leads the field in fundraising, taking in more than $3.3 million this cycle — far ahead of Manley, who has raised more than $1 million, the second-largest amount, as of Friday.

Wasserman Schultz and Manley are also the only candidates in the race who have attracted outside spending: Political action committees have poured almost $400,000 into Wasserman Schultz’s campaign and more than $20,000 into Manley’s.

When it comes to Wasserman Schultz, some Black Democrats are also frustrated with what they describe as her failure to meaningfully engage with local Black political groups, even before launching her campaign. 

Howson told MS NOW the Broward County Democratic Black Caucus tried to reach the congresswoman before she announced her candidacy to dissuade her from doing so, but “she didn’t want to have that conversation.” A spokesperson for Wasserman Schultz said she spoke with the group’s president, Corey Shearer, “several times” before launching her campaign.

Shearer told MS NOW her candidacy is “the final nail in coffin on top of Republican redistricting when it comes to the death of local black political power in Congress.” 

ebb

Nikki Fried, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, told the Miami Herald in June that she was “disappointed by the congresswoman’s refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue about her decision.” Spokespeople for the Florida Democratic Party did not respond to requests for comment from MS NOW. 

After Wasserman Schultz’s campaign website falsely claimed the Broward County Democratic Black Caucus endorsed her candidacy, the caucus put out a scathing statement in which they condemned what they described as a “false advertisement” reflective of “dishonest intentions.” Wasserman Schultz removed the endorsement from her website and publicly apologized, saying it was left over from her last campaign.

The congresswoman also skipped July debates hosted by the Broward County chapter of the NAACP and the Broward County Democratic Black Caucus. The Broward County NAACP did not respond to repeated inquiries from MS NOW. A spokesperson for Wasserman Schultz said she was in Washington to vote at the time of both debates.

Her critics, though, contend that her campaign proves the congresswoman is more interested in her own political future than preserving the history of the seat.

“This is more about a power trip and her ego,” Grundy-Gomes said, “and we don’t have time for ego.”

The post ‘A slap in the face’: Black Democrats blast Wasserman Schultz campaign appeared first on MS NOW.