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Focus Magazine

Update on Black Candidates for Statewide Office

Update on Black Candidates for Statewide Office

David Bostis

Sept. 18, 2006

Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick is poised to be the second black governor since Reconstruction (Douglas Wilder became the first black governor since Reconstruction when he won the Virginia gubernatorial race in 1989). Two polls conducted before the Democratic primary in Massachusetts on September 19 show him with strong leads over his rivals. In the first poll, he is at 45 percent, with venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli at 29 percent and Attorney General Tom Reilly at 21 percent. The second poll shows him at 36 percent, with Gabrieli at 26 percent and Reilly at 19 percent. In the most recent general election match-up against Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healy, Patrick led Healy by 10 points.

Democratic U.S. Representative Harold Ford, Jr. has pulled into the lead in his race to become Tennessee's—and the South's—first black U.S. Senator since Reconstruction. He leads his Republican opponent, former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker, 48 to 45 percent, but that is still within the statistical margin of error. Ford and Corker each won their respective party’s primary election on August 3.

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Did You Know?

Did you know that only 29 percent of African American adults surveyed in an October-November 2005 Joint Center poll expected Social Security to be their major source of retirement income? Fewer of them (20 percent) expected an employer-sponsored pension plan to be their major source of income, and more (42 percent) expected that their major source of income would be their own retirement savings and investments.

Source: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, National Opinion Poll of African American Adults About Social Security and Wealth, 2005.