There are 100 members of the United States Senate, and none is African American. There are 50 governors, and only one, Massachusetts’ Deval Patrick (D), is African American, and he won’t seek another term.
Perhaps the 2012 elections will help bring some additional diversity to statewide offices? Apparently not. Jamelle Bouie reported yesterday that there will very likely be no African-American candidates even running for governor or senator in November.
[S]ince the momentous 2008 election, there has been no great flowering of black political life, no renaissance in black political leadership. In a year when the first black president is running for re-election, the only African American bidding for a top statewide office is Maryland state Senator C. Anthony Muse, who is challenging Ben Cardin — a well-liked incumbent — in a hopeless race for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination. At most, by the end of 2012, two of the nation’s 150 governors and senators will be African American.
Yes, David Patterson became governor of New York after the resignation of Eliot Spitzer, but he bowed out of running for a full term after struggling with low approval ratings and accusations of corruption. Obama’s replacement in the U.S. Senate, former Illinois lawmaker Roland Burris, operated under a cloud of scandal and didn’t even attempt to win the seat in his own right. In 2010, a historically bad year for Democrats, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was the only African American to win statewide office.









