When and Where They Enter

Black Women's Candidate Emergence at the State Level

By Jamil S. Scott-Cummings

Subjects: Political Science, Race and Politics, Gender Studies, Women's Studies, Elections and Voting
Paperback : 9780472058785, 224 pages, 36 illustrations 25 tables, 6 x 9, August 2027
Hardcover : 9780472078783, 224 pages, 36 illustrations 25 tables, 6 x 9, August 2027
Open Access : 9780472907489, 224 pages, 36 illustrations 25 tables, 6 x 9, August 2027
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Table of Contents

Unpacking the media, voter, and party biases that Black women navigate on the campaign trail

Table of contents

Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Preface
1    Introduction
2    Defining Black Women’s Place in the Socio-Political Context
3    Why be intentional?: Engaging with Stereotypic Narratives of Black Women (Politicians and Candidates)
4    Let’s Talk About Money: How Campaign Finance Matters for Black Women’s Candidacies
5    Black Women in the State Level Context: Where They Run and When They Are Successful
6    Conclusion
A    Supplemental Information
B    Chapter 2 Supplementary Information
C    Chapter 3 Supplementary Information
D    Chapter 4 Supplementary Information
E    Chapter 5 Supplementary Information
References

Description

While Black women are often called the backbone of American democracy, their journeys to political office remain understudied. When and Where They Enter offers a way to develop our understanding of the women transforming American politics. By focusing on state-level elections, it explores what motivates Black women to run for public office, the biases they navigate in the public eye, and the structural factors that help or hinder their path to victory.

By deliberately departing from traditional, single-axis models of political ambition, Jamil Scott-Cummings frames candidate emergence through an explicit intersectional lens, treating Black women’s political agency as a dynamic interplay between psychological motivations, institutional factors, personal characteristics, and race-gender bias. She introduces a new conceptual model that challenges standard strategic entry theories: the intentional candidacy framework. Incorporating experiments, observational data, and elite interviews, When and Where They Enter offers robust empirical evidence of how race-gender identity shapes modern electoral supply. An essential read for voters, changemakers, and future leaders, the book offers a roadmap for understanding identity, power, and the future of political representation in America.

Jamil S. Scott-Cummings is Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University.

“When and Where They Enter is well-grounded in theory and empirically rich. Scott-Cummings is methodologically sophisticated. She effectively utilizes survey, experiments, state-level models and campaign finance analysis in a way that offers converging evidence to support the theoretical framework. Her contribution to the literature is necessary and timely.”

- Pearl K. Dowe, Emory University

“When and Where They Enter fills a big hole in that we know so little about Black women’s candidacies, especially at the state level. The financial analysis of Black women’s campaign funding is genuinely new, as is the idea that Black women politicians have different traits from Black women, creating the need for Black women to craft how they present themselves to appear as a politician.”

- Tracy Osborn, University of Iowa
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