MELBOURNE, Fla. — The theory was that Barack Obama's election as president in 2008 signaled a new era for black candidates trying to win statewide contests for senator or governor.

Now, Rep. Kendrick Meek is struggling with the reality.

In Florida, the 43-year-old African-American congressman, long the presumptive Democratic nominee in the state's tumultuous Senate race, is trying to fend off a surprise primary challenge from a Palm Beach billionaire and running a distant third in general-election matchups against a darling of the anti-tax "Tea Party" movement and the state's popular governor.

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David Bositis, a veteran scholar of black politics at The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, says a lack of a deep bench of African-American officeholders in lower offices also has been a factor in the paucity of nominees for prized offices this year.

And he and others say it was never realistic to expect that Obama's election, while a milestone, instantly would transform the nation's racial politics. Expectations were oversized when he won: Seven in 10 Americans predicted in a USA TODAY survey that his election would make race relations better.

Read the Full Story at USA Today.