How Progressive Candidates of Color Are Building Winning Coalitions

Just last month, it looked as if Amy McGrath would coast to the Democratic Senate nomination in Kentucky. A moderate former fighter pilot with strong backing from the party establishment, she had raised over $40 million, far more than all her competitors combined. From her TV ads, you would have thought she was already running against Senator Mitch McConnell in the general election.

But then came weeks of protests for racial justice, and a flush of new energy on the party’s left wing. Charles Booker, a state legislator endorsed by the likes of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had been campaigning on a platform of “Medicare for all,” the Green New Deal and bold police reform; he surged in the weeks before Tuesday’s election.

On Thursday, after a new batch of preliminary results were released, Mr. Booker held a 3.5-percentage-point lead over Ms. McGrath, although most absentee ballots haven’t been counted yet and we may not know who won the race for days.

As swift and dramatic as Mr. Booker’s rise has been, it’s part of an ongoing trend in Democratic politics — one that’s been a long time in the making, according to polling on political attitudes.