Dems See Progress on Diversity, but Firms Struggle to Keep Pace
Democratic groups have made headway in recent years hiring more diverse talent, but consulting firms still have some catching up to do.
In interviews with Campaigns & Elections, half a dozen Democratic consultants, operatives and committee staffers commended concerted efforts by party committees and PACs to diversify their staffs over the past several election cycles. But they also acknowledged that Democratic firms and agencies have, at times, struggled to keep pace with those efforts.
Hiring diverse firms and talent, these consultants and operatives said, isn’t about “virtue signaling.” Rather, it’s a necessary undertaking if Democrats want to hold together the muliracial coalition that has powered the party’s victories for years.
“Over the last four cycles, Democrats have done worse with Black voters, they’ve done worse with Latino voters, they’ve done worse with AAPI voters, they’ve done worse with young voters,” Terrance Woodbury, the president and founding partner of HIT Strategies, said. “When you hire firms that have an authentic connection to the communities you’re trying to mobilize, you don’t see this cycle-over-cycle erosion.”
Put another way, Woodbury said, without a more diverse bench of consultants, creatives and pollsters, Democrats “are begging young people and people of color to engage in a system where they don’t see themselves represented in any of the body politic.”
Several Democrats said that it’s more important now than ever for consulting firms to diversify their staffs. President Donald Trump made notable gains last year among key constituencies that Democrats have long counted on – including Latino voters and Black men – and party leaders are scrambling to win back those voters.
“If you want to fix the problems from 2024, I’d say looking at who you’re hiring is a good place to start,” one Democratic strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. “The Democratic Party is diverse. Our candidates are diverse. Our committees are diverse. The consulting world really isn’t. At least not in the way it should be.”
Multiple consultants noted that the party has made progress in recent years. For example, after an upheaval among the top ranks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2019 over a lack of diversity at the campaign arm, the group ramped up its efforts to hire more people of color and increased its spending on minority-owned firms.
But that kind of “intentionality” in hiring is too often missing at political consulting firms, said Chuck Rocha, the president and founder of Solidarity Strategies. Rocha said that minority-owned consultancies are still sidelined in favor of legacy agencies and mega firms.
“Politics and political campaigns are the last true bastion of the ‘good old boy’ system,” Rocha said. “There may be an RFP process in name only, but the folks who get hired are the same groups of consultants who have the experience and who work on all the races.”
Consequently, he said, people of color and small-to-midsized minority-owned firms have fewer opportunities to gain experience and prove themselves in marquee races.
“Because of that loyalty and that winning record, a lot of candidates and groups never change horses, so there’s never an entry point for that minority-owned firm that’s doing groundbreaking stuff,” Rocha said.
“Making Progress”
It’s an issue that Democrats have grappled with for years. Even in 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign came under fire from some Black political operatives, who expressed frustration that the campaign wasn’t spending enough on minority-owned consulting firms.
Shripal Shah, the independent expenditure director at House Majority PAC, the main super PAC backing House Democrats, said there’s room for improvement in how the consulting world hires diverse talent, but stressed that the volume of progress that has been made in the last six years is not nothing.” He said that diversity among the ranks of Democratic staffers and operatives has improved significantly over the past several election cycles, especially within party committees and PACs.
In turn, that creates a pipeline of skilled, experienced professionals that will eventually lead to more diversity at Democratic-aligned political firms, Shah said.
“I think the consulting world definitely needs to do better,” Shah, a former partner at Left Hook, said. “But that requires a pool of experienced operatives and only recently started cultivating that pipeline. So you might not see it pay off until 2028, 2030.”
“That’s a long way of saying I think we’re making progress,” he added. “ I think you’re going to see us build on that moving forward, possibly even a massive shift in the next four, six, eight years.”
Domonique James, the founder and CEO of Politics With Purpose, said that Democrats benefit from hiring more women, young people and people of color, because those professionals are the ones who best connect with the communities and electorates that make up the party’s voter base.
And at a moment when Democrats are grappling with how to rebuild trust among voters, it’s in the party’s “best interest to build a comprehensive consulting class that can meet people where they are.”
“We’re the ones showing up when institutions fail. We’re the ones addressing the immediate needs. We’re filling in gaps for the people,” James said. “That’s a big disconnect that I think is very problematic in the industry. And also looking ahead, that’s something that will need to be connected.”
