2020 Vision: Republicans becoming ever more a party of white men
When Republican Rep. Will Hurd announced his retirement Thursday night, it sent a shock through Washington and the state of Texas. The relatively young, charismatic African-American congressman, 41, won a competitive 2018 reelection race for his district, which stretches along the Mexico border. Republicans were expecting a tough rematch with Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, but his announcement was still a surprise. Hurd is the only African-American Republican congressman and was one of just four House Republicans to vote to condemn President Trump over his “go back to your country” tweets about four Democratic women of color in the House.
As presently constituted, after Hurd’s retirement the next Congress will have exactly one black Republican: Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. There are no African-American Republican governors.
But it’s not just Hurd. Since the start of summer, seven Republican House members have announced they were retiring at the end of 2020, including Reps. Martha Roby of Alabama and Susan Brooks of Indiana. Roby and Brooks are two of just 13 Republican women in the House, leaving 11 incumbents remaining who will run in 2020. As Politico noted this morning, there are now more House Republicans named Jim running for reelection in 2020 than House Republicans who are women. July was also marked by the departure of the Republican caucus’s only Arab-American, as Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan switched his affiliation to independent after calling for an impeachment inquiry of President Trump.
It’s a stark contrast to the Democratic caucus, which saw its most diverse freshman class ever join the House in January. Eighty-nine of 235 Democrats in the House, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are women. Almost half of those, 42, are women of color; just one Republican woman is a member of a minority — Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, who is of Mexican descent....
Republicans count eight women senators in their caucus, all of them white, compared with 17 women Democrats, four of them minority members, including presidential candidate Kamala Harris. In January, Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Joni Ernst of Iowa were appointed to the Judiciary Committee, marking the first time a Republican woman had a seat on that key committee in its 200-plus-year history.
Heading into 2020, Republicans face headwinds from a recent poll that found 51 percent of Americans believe Trump is racist, even as he holds a strong approval rating among Republican voters. Amid his attacks on prominent and well-respected black Democrats such as Rep. Elijah Cummings, Trump is increasingly reliant on showcasing marginal figures such as the video bloggers Diamond and Silk. With Hurd’s retirement and the dearth of serious minority voices in the party, it’s becoming harder for the GOP to make the case that it’s a party for all Americans.
