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WILMINGTON, Del. — Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester has a saying she chants with her supporters during campaign events: “When Lisa goes to Washington, we all go to Washington.”

The refrain captures the small-town ethos of her home state of Delaware, where the idea of “everyone knows everyone” may well translate to being on a first-name basis with members of Congress. Her campaign message also highlights how she thinks about her work in public office and efforts to bring diverse voices to the table. 

As Blunt Rochester walks through her old neighborhood in Northwest Wilmington on a picturesque October day, a mix of people — most of them Black — call out to her from their yards or pull their cars over to say hello. Until Blunt Rochester, many of the residents in this community had never seen someone who looks like them in the halls of Congress. Eight years ago, Blunt Rochester made history as the first Black person and first woman elected to represent Delaware in Congress. Now, she’s aiming for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

The race is shaping up to be a blowout for Blunt Rochester: She is polling 20 points ahead of her Republican competitor in a state that has been reliably blue since the early 2000s. She has support from President Joe Biden, a former Delaware senator, and incumbent Sen. Tom Carper, who announced his retirement last year and pointed to Blunt Rochester as a worthy successor.

Despite all the things working in her favor, Blunt Rochester is not ready to celebrate just yet. To be a history-making Black woman in 2024 is to be at once acutely aware of the country’s progress, its unfinished work and the harsh realities that threaten Black women’s representation in government. 

“I still, as a Black woman, can look at how much a donor gives me and how much they give my White counterpart and see a disparity. I still deal with the issues of people’s expectations, and that’s good expectations and bad expectations,” Blunt Rochester told The 19th. “I also think that there’s a level for me of responsibility. I care about this pipeline. Maybe other folks don’t have to think that way, but I do.”

If successful, Blunt Rochester would be just the third Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate out of 2,004 senators in the nation’s history. The first, Carol Moseley Braun, was elected to represent Illinois in 1992. Then came Vice President Kamala Harris, who won a Senate seat in California 24 years later, in 2016. Sen. Laphonza Butler of California, the only Black woman in the Senate currently, was appointed to her position last year and is not running to keep the seat.

Blunt Rochester has previously said she’s “not running to make history,” but that she’s running to make a difference. In conversations with The 19th, she focused on the concerns facing voters in Delaware, including job security, health care costs or affordable housing. Delaware has residents in urban, suburban, coastal and rural areas, she said, and she takes the role of representing all people in the state very seriously, and working across the aisle to get things done. 

It was clear, though, that she registered the weight of the moment for those who are historically underrepresented in higher office and how she might help shape the future for women and women of color in particular.

“The higher you go, the higher the stakes,” she said. “I know that there is work that has to be done to get there. I know that you can’t take anybody or any vote for granted.”

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Blunt Rochester is a strong believer in the power of sisterhoods. Her closest group of friends is made up of 14 Black women from five families who call themselves the LYLAS (Love You Like a Sister) and have known one another since elementary school. They have seen each other through weddings, the birth of children, divorces, illnesses and deaths.

“I’m so blessed to be a part of it,” Carla Broadway, one of the LYLAS members, said recently. “I hope that women around the country understand and learn how to support each other and how to lift each other out, how to not compete with each other. We have everyone from a stay-at-home mom all the way up to a congresswoman and future senator in our midst, and there’s no competition. There is no envy. We love each other.” 

Blunt Rochester explained that having meaningful personal and professional connections has helped her survive the most difficult moments of life. When she separated from her first husband, she packed up her two teen children and went to live at one of the LYLAS’ homes temporarily. Ten years ago, when her second husband, Charles Rochester, suddenly died from blood clots, members of the LYLAS cooked her meals and helped to keep her home clean while she grieved. 

The role of “sister circle” networks among women at various levels of government is well-documented — from Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to veteran Democratic advisor Minyon Moore. 

Today there’s a small but growing sisterhood of Black women who have held the title of U.S. senator: Moseley Braun, Harris and Butler. That number could shift in a big way this year with the election of Blunt Rochester in Delaware and that of fellow Democrat Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland. If they both win, it would be the first time in history that two Black women would serve in the Senate at the same time.

As candidates running for the same office in neighboring states, Blunt Rochester and Alsobrooks have already developed a friendship as aspiring “sister senators,” as they refer to each other. 

They are competing in very different Senate races. Alsobrooks is running against Maryland’s popular former governor, Larry Hogan, and has come from tying him in the polls to being the frontrunner. Blunt Rochester, on the other hand, has been widely viewed as the favorite to win. Researchers observing their campaigns pointed to Blunt Rochester’s Senate race as a stand-out from what they typically see with Black women candidates.

“The majority of Black women, the ones that I have had the opportunity to interview and do research on, have had much more of an outsider role in politics. They were able to use some but not all, like traditional avenues to getting elected,” said Nadia Brown, a professor of government and director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University. “Lisa Blunt Rochester is seen as someone who was capable and whose skill set would aid in the party.”

In May 2023, when Sen. Carper announced that he would not seek reelection after 24 years in his seat, he told reporters that he said to Blunt Rochester that he would “get out of the way” and that he hoped she would run to replace him.

The moment was decades in the making. Blunt Rochester’s time in government started as a graduate student when she walked up to Carper at a town hall meeting, her 2-year-old son on her hip, and asked him how she could get involved. That led to an internship in 1989 in his Wilmington office while he was in the House of Representatives for Delaware. She was later hired full-time and continued to work for him when he became governor in 1993, serving as deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services and secretary of the Department of Labor.

“We just loved her right from the start,” Carper told The 19th. “She is such a joyful, positive force and a can-do person, a very caring person and smart person.”

Blunt Rochester is also part of Biden’s circle: She was a member of his vice presidential selection committee in 2020 and national co-chair for his reelection campaign before he stepped aside in July.

But Black women candidates don’t always have emphatic support from party leaders, or a comfortable lead in a major race. Even Blunt Rochester says she doesn’t feel completely safe yet.

“Crazier things have happened in Delaware,” she said. “If the voters don’t turn out, if people don’t connect their life to their vote, or connect the work that I’m doing to that vote, then I could lose.”

Getting to this place took years of working her way up to state government. Even after reaching that point, she faced doubts during her first bid for Congress in 2016. Critics questioned her age (she was more than 50 years old), lack of experience running for office and whether she would prioritize representing all people in Delaware beyond Black voters and women voters. To help fund her campaign, Blunt Rochester used part of the life insurance money she received after her husband’s death. Without it, she would not have been able to run, she said. 

Assessing how much circumstances are improving for Black women candidates can be a challenge. Since 2014, the number of Black women in Congress has nearly doubled to 29. But statewide elected offices like the U.S. Senate and governor have been harder to shift. Historically, Black women faced questions about their ability to fundraise or be competitive, but candidates like Stacey Abrams and Cheri Beasley have demonstrated that possibility, softening what have been some of their most stubborn barriers.

But women candidates and candidates of color are also seeing an increase in outside organizational spending against them, a rise in disinformation campaigns and growing threats to their personal safety, said Glynda Carr, co-founder, president and CEO of Higher Heights, a political group dedicated to electing Black women.

“We’ve broken down some barriers, but there’s been some additional barriers that have been put into place,” Carr said. “As more people retire and as we see more openings in elected office, I believe that we’re going to see movement along the pipeline that includes Black women that are serving in state legislatures across this country, city councils across this country, and in the U.S. House of Representatives.”

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When talking about her race for the U.S. Senate, Blunt Rochester is guided by lessons she’s learned from her family. The Blunts moved from Philadelphia to Wilmington in 1969 when she was in the first grade. Growing up in Wilmington, Blunt Rochester watched her father, Ted Blunt, lead a community social services nonprofit called the People’s Settlement Association, serve as a school administrator for local public schools and advocate for policy as the Wilmington City Council president. 

The roots of her family, and the era she grew up in, against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, instilled in her the conviction that “all of us deserve to be seen and heard,” she said. As the representative for Delaware’s at-large congressional district, the state’s only seat in the House, Blunt Rochester joined any place where she could “get something done and partner with people,” she said, including the Congressional Black Caucus, Women’s Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus, the House Committee on Agriculture and House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

She prides herself on working across the aisle on legislation, which she believes leads to “more inclusive, stronger solutions” that help people throughout her state feel heard. As a senator, Blunt Rochester believes that she will be better positioned to serve constituents on a deeper level in a chamber like the Senate, which has fewer members and where terms last six years, rather than two. 

She is also thinking about what this pathway looks for people who have historically been underrepresented and offers mentoring to women interested in running for office. She has also sponsored several people to attend candidate boot camps that offer training on running for office.

“I feel a deep responsibility to bridge the gap and build a pipeline to other women and underrepresented groups of people,” Blunt Rochester said. “For me, it’s about providing tangible, meaningful support to the next generation of leaders, because it’s not enough to be a ‘first,’ it’s about giving back.”

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