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In almost every modern Democratic Party campaign, there is a moment when someone says, “We need to do Black outreach.”
Despite near-universal agreement that this effort is “important,” it follows the same predictable pattern that produces the same lackluster results.
The effort can rarely even be called a strategy. More often, it is just a task.
The outreach is supplemental at best. The team views it as something to add once the real work is done. A discrete assignment is created and assigned to someone. It gets scheduled, budgeted, and checked off. A small part of the campaign moves in that direction, enough to say the work was done but not enough to shape the outcome.
That pattern is not about bad intentions. It is about how power, money, and risk are organized in politics. When we treat outreach like a task instead of a core strategy, it might look like inclusion, but what’s really offered is a seat at the table with nothing but crumbs.
The Comfort of Crumbs
Crumbs persist because they solve an internal problem for campaigns, even as they fail an external one.
They allow campaigns to signal inclusion without redistributing power. They create the appearance of responsiveness without forcing hard tradeoffs. Most importantly, they insulate decision-makers from risk because a failed add-on can always be blamed while a failed strategy would require accountability.
The crumb is comforting because it does not require campaigns to rethink their plan. It keeps the real strategy intact while carving out a narrow lane labeled “Black outreach,” separate from message development, persuasion, and budget authority.
As Roland Martin put it on this week’s episode of At Our Table [ [link removed] ], “Political campaigns and corporations have tried to get us to believe that a crumb is a meal. And a crumb is not a meal.” The issue is not intent. It is structure. And structures reward what feels safe, not what actually works.
What the Crumb Looks Like
The typical Black outreach program is easy to recognize. It is late—often after Labor Day and sometimes after early voting has already begun.
It appears as a small, siloed budget aimed at “the Black community,” disconnected from the campaign’s main message architecture. The ads are rarely tested alongside core messaging, and they focus on turnout rather than issues. The chosen platforms are familiar, not strategic. The goal is visibility instead of persuasion.
What’s missing is persuasion rooted in the realities of people’s lives. Too often, campaigns assume that if Black voters turn out, their votes are guaranteed, so they skip the harder work of speaking directly to the issues shaping Black economic mobility and opportunity. As Roland pointed out, Democrats rarely talk seriously about business, investment, or entrepreneurship, even as a growing number of Black college graduates enter the workforce earning more than their parents ever did. That silence isn’t accidental. It reflects who is paid to shape the message—and who is not.
Meanwhile, the consultants with full authority and full pay are busy with the “critical work” on audiences assumed to be undecided or valuable.
I have seen this play out more times than I can count throughout my career. Campaigns would spend millions to introduce candidates to “the general electorate,” then hesitate over comparatively small investments in Black media and outreach. The explanation—offered by people far removed from those communities—was that Black voters were already with us.
The result is always the same: Black voters are counted in turnout models, not courted through sustained persuasion.
But familiarity is not persuasion. And loyalty does not replace trust.
Gatekeepers and Risk
This is not just about individual campaigns. It is about who controls access to resources.
Most political spending flows through a small ecosystem of consultants, buyers, and firms. They decide what counts as “proven,” what is considered “risky,” and who is worth full investment.
Black-owned media and Black consultants are often positioned outside that comfort zone. Not because they lack audiences or impact, but because they sit outside established relationships. When the people crafting persuasion are disconnected from the communities they’re targeting, campaigns default to turnout math instead of trust.
This is not theoretical. It is how modern campaigns actually function, sustained by an ecosystem that rewards familiarity [ [link removed] ] and punishes disruption. When decision-makers define risk narrowly, they protect existing power even when it underperforms.
And when campaigns lose by margins they could have influenced, no one traces the loss back to the choices that felt safest at the time.
Margins Don’t Respond to Assumptions
Elections today are decided by thousands of votes, not millions. That reality is acknowledged constantly. It just isn’t acted on consistently.
When budgets tighten, the same priorities reassert themselves. The argument is that campaigns need to build name recognition with “the general electorate” first.
But guess what? Black voters are part of the general electorate. And they want to see a hell of a lot more than D by your name. If you can’t respect them enough to show up early, often, and authentically, then they don’t want to hear from you.
Campaigns understand this logic perfectly when they talk about suburban swing voters. They invest early. They test messages. They build presence. With Black voters, they rely on history instead of effort.
That is not strategy. It is assumption.
The Favor Economy
Here is where responsibility becomes unavoidable.
Campaigns that plead scarcity have no trouble paying full price to the same firms that keep underperforming. At the same time, they regularly ask Black consultants, Black organizers, and Black media to “do a favor.” They ask for flexibility and to take less now for the good of the cause.
The message is clear. Loyalty is expected downward. Full value is paid upward.
This is not about fairness. It is about outcomes. You cannot build durable coalitions while running a favor economy. You cannot ask communities to absorb the cost of your caution.
And when those same campaigns fall short, the analysis never includes who was underinvested.
What Strategy Actually Requires
I’m fully expecting nearly everyone reading this to nod their heads in agreement. Some of you have probably been saying this for years. I appreciate your support, but I have to tell you something: You’re not doing enough. Hell, I haven’t done enough. We all have to do more.
If you are a donor, consultant, or decision-maker who believes this critique is accurate and still allocates resources the same way, you are not neutral. You are choosing comfort over consequence.
You are choosing the crumb because it feels manageable. And then you are surprised when it is insufficient.
Agreement without action is how this pattern survives. It allows everyone to say the right things while reproducing the same failures cycle after cycle.
A real strategy does not treat Black voters as a turnout mechanism or Black media as a checkbox. It integrates persuasion, trust-building, and investment from the start.
It expands the decision-making table to include people who understand communities as lived environments, not just demographic slices. It funds capacity, not just moments. It values institutions that can educate, contextualize, and hold power accountable.
Most importantly, it accepts that “safe” choices are not always smart ones. Continuing to do what feels familiar can be more risky than changing course.
From Agreement to Action
The 2026 midterm elections are nine months away. Every campaign has work to do. Here’s what I recommend:
Short term
If you control a budget, examine when Black outreach appears. If it comes late and small, change that. Early investment is not symbolic. It is strategic.
Medium term
Stop asking for favors. Pay full value. If a platform or consultant is worth using, they are worth paying. If they are not worth paying, do not ask them to carry trust for free.
Long term
Invest in infrastructure—not one-offs or gestures. If there are no pipelines for talent, then help to create one. Use your campaign as an opportunity to recruit, train and mentor. Institutions that inform, persuade, and endure are democratic assets. Treat them as such.
Everyone reading this knows crumbs do not sustain people. They do not sustain movements either.
A strategy requires intention, investment, and the willingness to disrupt habits that feel safe.
The question is not whether this analysis is correct.
It is whether you are willing to act like it is.

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