People of color credited by Dems for role in electing Biden

Democratic lawmakers on Sunday credited communities of color for helping to secure President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

Stacey Abrams, a former Democratic minority leader in Georgia's House of Representatives, said Sunday on CNN: "We're so proud of the work that the Biden campaign did in Georgia, but we're incredibly excited about the work that's been done on the ground for the last decade to bring us to this point. And we're so excited to be going blue."

Abrams, who lost the 2018 gubernatorial campaign by 55,000 votes, heads a nonprofit that worked to boost minority turnout in the state and fight voter suppression.

Biden is currently leading Trump in Georgia by more than 10,000 votes. The last Democratic presidential candidate to carry Georgia was Bill Clinton in 1992.

Abrams credited "dozens of organizations and hundreds of people" who have made flipping Georgia "their primary mission."

Abrams said she and organizers helped to "build a Democratic infrastructure that may not have yielded a victory for me in 2018, but certainly yielded a victory this week."

Others have also credited the work of Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House majority whip, for his pivotal endorsement of Biden in February.

Biden's primary campaign was flailing ahead of the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29, but a few days before, Clyburn endorsed Biden. Biden won the state's primary on Feb. 29, providing him with the momentum to force other candidates to withdraw and win a bulk of the votes at play on Super Tuesday.

"It all came from the voters of South Carolina," Clyburn said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Clyburn said he was compelled to endorse Biden publicly, following an "encounter in a rural church in Richland County, South Carolina, with an elderly lady sitting on the front bench."

He shared the story with CNN's Jake Tapper.

"She called me over to her. And she asked me, who was I going to vote for? And when I told her — and it was kind of interesting, because she says, 'If you don't want anybody else to hear, just lean down and whisper it in my ear.' "

He continued, "And I did what she asked me to do. But she snapped her head back. And the way she looked in my face and told me, I needed to hear that, and this community needs to hear from you. And that what made me do what I did in the manner that I did it."

Since Election Day, Democrats have been divided over whether to embrace a progressive or more centrist approach in governing.

Clyburn, on CNN, expressed concern with some of the messages used by Democrats during the past year, including the popular mantra of "defund the police."

"I spoke about against the sloganeering. And I feel very strongly we can't pick up these things just because it makes a good headline. It sometimes destroys headway," he said.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx/Queens) said she believed Biden "acknowledged the enormous role that communities of color, black communities, Latino communities, the trans community, et cetera, played in his victory."

She added, "and we also know that majorities of these communities are progressive. They make up not just the progressive base, but the base of the Democratic Party."

Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats should do a better job of defending themselves against Republican attacks. "Some of the arguments that are being advanced, the 'defund the police' hurt or that arguments about socialism hurt, not a single member of Congress that I'm aware of campaigned on socialism or defunding the police in this general election."

By Scott Eidler

scott.eidler@newsday.com@ScottEidler

Scott Eidler is a deputy editor for the towns department at Newsday. Scott has worked at Newsday since 2012 and previously covered municipal government and education.