Voters use salient issues to inform their vote choice. Using 2020 Cooperative Election Study (CES) data, we analyze how short-, medium-, and long-term issues informed the vote for president in the 2020 election, which witnessed record-setting participation. To explain the dynamics of presidential vote choice, we employ a voter typology advanced by Key (1966). Specifically, compared to standpatters, who in 2020 registered the same major party vote as in 2016, we find that new voters in 2020 and voters switching their preferences from 2016 cast their ballots in favor of Democrat Joe Biden. In the end, President Donald Trump was denied reelection by new voters and vote switchers principally because certain issues had a notable effect in moving their presidential preferences in the Democratic direction.

In this essay, we place Black women's electoral challenges and opportunities in context. We situate this year of “Black Women Candidates” as an anomaly, but one that has been a long in the making. We also point to the appeal of Black women lawmakers among voters to mirror Alberder Gillespie's claims in this epigraph. We note that Black women have long been the backbone of the Democratic Party and are willing to use their clout for their own political means. Furthermore, given the unique ways that Black women represent their constituents, an influx of Black women into governing bodies may have a substantial, lasting impact on policy-making. We conclude with insights from our own research and that of other scholars on Black women to demonstrate future avenues of scholarly research.