Black voters have long been the backbone of the Democratic Party, but remain underrepresented in the rooms where campaign money, messaging and strategy are controlled.
Ashley Etienne, a communications strategist who has been a senior advisor to several Democratic leaders, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, says it’s beyond time that the party brings Black voters to the political table in an equitable way.
Etienne, who was also communications director and senior advisor to Nancy Pelosi, spoke with The Emancipator about how Black voters must recognize their leverage, make clear demands and insist on sustained investment in Black political infrastructure. She discusses how the structure of the Democratic Party has marginalized Black voters, the consequences of preserving the status quo in elections and what Democrats must do to rebuild trust before the 2026 midterm elections.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Chandelis Duster: The Democratic Party has relied on Black voters for decades, but political influence hasn’t translated into comparable influence over spending, strategy or decision-making. Why do you think that gap persists?
Ashley Etienne: I think it’s because we don’t know what we don’t know. It wasn’t until recently that the Democrats put out their 2024 autopsy [report]. And it was clear in that autopsy not only do we contribute to [winning] cycle after cycle, but it was also clear…that there’s a huge gap in terms of what they invest in Black voters. So I looked at their autopsy and across the entire Democratic ecosystem — that includes the presidential campaigns, the congressional campaigns, the senatorial campaigns, all the campaigns — the party spends about $8 billion on those campaigns. And of the $8 billion, they invest approximately 1% in Black voters.
We should see every one of those dollars as an opportunity to invest in building Black infrastructure all across this country. When you invest big in Black voters, we turn out big. That matters because the autopsy really not only showed how much the party spends and the dearth that they spend on Black voters, but it also showed that decisions were made in the 2024 campaign to not win the election, but to line people’s pockets. That I find deplorable. Why? Because at the end of the day, those decisions disproportionately impact Black voters.
We are suffering because of the decisions that the Democratic Party made. Not only are they divesting in Black voters, but they made strategic decisions to not invest in us and to line their pockets.
In what ways are the Democratic Party’s own structures contributing to the limitations on Black political and economic power?
I’ve been in the party 25 years, and the same five to eight people have made all the strategic budgetary decisions and the messaging decisions, and more than half of those people made them in their own fiduciary interest. They’re not making them in the interest of our people. They’re not making them in the interest of winning elections. I mean, they’re not even held to account. They don’t even have to win these elections. They’re going to get the check every year after year after year. That’s what you see in the autopsy.
It’s because you continue to allow this system to persist, where you’ve got very few people – they don’t look like us – at the top making all of these decisions and making all of the money and getting all of their friends rich at our expense. At the expense of Black voters. The structure enables limitations. The structure enables the party to ignore us, to take us for granted, to invest in us late. And if we continue down that path, we’re going to keep getting the same results. And what the Republican Party has decided to do is to confront itself, turn the mirror on itself, and now, tactically, they’re leaps and bounds ahead of us. They’re organizing on the ground better than we are. That used to be our strength. They’re now investing in building new information ecosystems.
That’s why the entire system has to be dismantled if we’re going to be successful again, and if Black folks are not going to continue to be the victims of these political systems and of this political party. We’re a victim of their decisions. We’re a victim of this system that is set up that continues to marginalize Black voters.
Historically, the Republican Party has assumed Black support after Emancipation and the Democratic Party has and is doing the same. How do we dismantle this notion of presumed and sometimes unearned loyalty?
I would not argue that we need to dismantle the loyalty. I think the loyalty you’ve got two options, and of the two options, I think the smarter one is the Democratic Party.
My former boss Nancy Pelosi said it perfectly to me: power only concedes to greater power. Power isn’t given; you have to take it. So what we have to do is make demands of the Democratic Party. My other boss, Kamala Harris, said that Black voters need to become more transactional. It’s not that you need to leave the Democratic Party. We are leaving the Democratic Party in record numbers, which should be a five-alarm fire for the party, but we have to be clear about what we want in the dynamic. We’ve got all the power in the dynamic.
Too often, we’re giving away our votes. We’re giving away our political capital. We’re giving away our work hitting the ground and mobilizing without any demands. And when we make demands, we get what we want. When we made demands of Joe Biden, we got Kamala Harris. We also got [Supreme Court Justice] Ketanji Brown Jackson. When we as Black women, we were very clear about what we wanted, the party was in a position to deliver. We have to know our own power.
What would success look like in 2026 beyond winning seats? What changes would convince Black voters that the party is investing in lasting relationships with Black communities rather than simply using them as a resource to extract votes?
We’re a tool. We’re not even at the table. We’re a tool to turn out votes and to win elections. But if I had to give the Democratic Party some advice, it would be this … listen and engage Black voters. We make assumptions about Black voters. We assume that they’re Democrats. We assume that they are moved by civil rights. We assume that they’re moved by this argument about our ancestors. We assume that they’re for a progressive agenda, which many Black people are not for a progressive agenda.
First things first, you have to engage and spend time with and listen to Black voters. We’ve got to create a level of intimacy with Black voters, no longer making assumptions or taking the voters’ votes for granted. The second thing I would suggest is that we transform how we’re talking to Black voters. Too often, the Democratic Party sort of lays on top of us the burden of loyalty – loyalty to the party and the burden of ‘Well, you have to do it because your ancestors died for you to have this opportunity, so therefore you have to do it.’ And I think that those messages don’t work for every Black voter and I think they’re having less potency over the course of time.
If my life is not changing, I’m not buying into your arguments any longer, and that’s why we’re seeing this erosion of support among Black voters. We need to talk to Black voters in the context of power. Not the context of loyalty, not the context of obligation, and not the context of ancestors.
And what I mean by power is to really convey to Black voters that we’re partners in this work. You don’t owe me anything. In fact, I owe you. The third is always pay me like you owe me. Make the investments and make them real and not just on election day or 30 days out from the election. Don’t just see us as a tool. See us as a partner in this dynamic. And when you see us as a partner, you respect us on a whole other level. You want to seek out our opinion and our feedback, you listen and you put us in positions not just of representation but authority over budgets that involve Black voters.
If Democrats fail to change how they invest in Black political infrastructure after 2026, what do you think the long-term consequences will be — not just for the party, but for Black political power?
I think it could become even more diffused than where it is now; we become more bifurcated. We become less able to leverage our collective power on things outside of a Black man dying…that seems to be the easy thing for us to rally around when someone dies in the streets at the hands of the police.
We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to not just make it in this moment, but how we’re going to thrive coming out of this moment because everything is in flux and is transforming and right underneath our feet. That’s why the investments are also important for us…and then how do we mobilize the entire community around those issues.
