The Next Generation

Here's an election contest that may have national implications, a chance for a Republican in one of the most Democrat states in the union. Having already elected a Republican governor last time round in an upset victory over one of the Kennedy women, Maryland may be poised to send a Republican to the Senate. Washington Post:

An internal document prepared by a top Democratic strategist warns that a majority of African American voters in Maryland are open to supporting Republican Senate candidate Michael S. Steele and advises the party not to wait to "knock Steele down."

The 37-page report says a sizable segment of likely black voters -- as much as 44 percent -- would readily abandon their historic Democratic allegiances "after hearing Steele's messaging."

"Governor Ehrlich and [Lt. Gov.] Michael Steele have a clear ability to break through the Democratic stronghold among African American voters in Maryland," says the March 27 report by Cornell Belcher, polling consultant for the Democratic National Committee, which bases its findings on a survey of 489 black voters in Maryland conducted last month.

The report, given to The Washington Post this week, drills into a topic that has emerged as a key focus of this year's U.S. Senate contest in Maryland: race.

In 2002, Steele became the first African American elected to statewide office in Maryland, and he has designed his Senate campaign to cut into the black support that has traditionally flocked to Democrats.

A Republican researcher questions the numbers but confirms the trend:

If the findings of the poll are correct, they paint a somewhat different vision of the black electorate from what has been commonly understood to this point, said David Bositis, a senior research associate at the D.C.-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Bositis said nothing in his research suggests that an African American Republican will be able to grab a significant segment of the black vote.

The DNC survey finds that 22 percent of black voters support Steele when matched against a "generic" Democrat.

"There's just no way it's that high," Bositis said, noting that Steele's performance among black voters in the 2002 election did not approach that number. "If he was that much of a draw then it's doubtful he would only have received 13 percent of the black vote."

There are other aspects of the survey, though, that Bositis says are consistent with national findings. Among them: that young black men represent a voting bloc far less loyal to Democrats. It also finds more support for Steele in Baltimore than in Prince George's County, more backing among churchgoers, and stronger support among those without a college degree.

And other tests of this new voting bloc shift will come in governors' races in Pennsylvania, where former Pittsburgh Steeler star Lynn Swann is running against incumbent and former DNC chairman Ed Rendell, and in Ohio with Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. The issues are tax relief, job creation, tort reform, and more opportunity in education.

Perhaps the next generation of black leaders will be predominantly conservative with a hopeful message.