Democrats historically have touted race and identity politics in the lead-up to high-profile elections, including former President Barack Obama chastising Black men for not supporting former Vice President Kamala Harris for president just one year ago.
On the 2025 gubernatorial campaign trail in Virginia, however, race was dropped from the common talking points as Obama and other Democrats rallied around former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a White woman, in her battle against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a Jamaican immigrant and Marine veteran. Earle-Sears would have been the state's first Black female governor if she had been victorious Tuesday.
Former Republican Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is in the midst of his 2026 Senate campaign to replace outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell, advocated that identity politics should be dropped from public discourse and replaced with discussions on merit, while noting Democrats employ race rhetoric when it's most advantageous.
Democrats "certainly pick and choose when they want to highlight a candidate's race and use that for political expediency," Cameron said. "But the Republican Party has been consistent that we're a party about merit."
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Obama campaigned in the Old Dominion state to drum up support for Spanberger, who is the first woman elected governor in the state, just roughly a year after he chastised Black male voters in Pennsylvania for not offering an outpouring of support to then-Vice President Harris' campaign.
"We have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all corners of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running," Obama said of support for Harris' race.
"Now, I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers. So if you don't mind - just for a second, I've got to speak to y'all and say that when you have a choice that is this clean: When on the one hand, you have somebody who grew up like you, went to college with you, understands the struggles (and the) pain and joy that comes from those experiences," Obama said, continuing that Trump "has consistently shown disregard, not just for the communities, but for you as a person - and you are thinking about sitting out?"
A year later, Obama called on Virginia voters to snub the Black female candidate in favor of Spanberger.
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"There is absolutely no evidence Republican policies have made life better for you, the people of Virginia," Obama said in his speech from the Virginia campaign trail Saturday. "I mean, they've they've devoted enormous energy to trying to entrench themselves in power and punishing their enemies and enriching their friends and silencing their critics. They they put on a big show of deporting people and targeting transgender folks. They never missed a chance to scapegoat minorities and DEI for every problem under the sun."
Obama, specifically, has a lengthy list of invoking identity politics while on the campaign trail or in public settings, while Democrats since his presidency have amplified their promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from the highest echelons of government down to school classrooms until Trump signed executive orders barring such programs from government.
"I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election," Obama said in 2016 of the Black community supporting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's failed presidential run. "You want to give me a good send-off, go vote."
Former President Joe Biden also focused on identity politics during his lengthy tenure in the nation's captial, including vowing he would nominate a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court as he went through the merits of candidates. Biden ultimately nominated now-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court in 2022.
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"While I've been studying candidates' backgrounds and writings, I've made no decision except one: the person I nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity - and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. It's long overdue, in my view," Biden said before announcing Jackson's nomination.
Race, however, was left out of the 2025 gubernatorial race in Virginia as Earle-Sears faced off against Spanberger, with Cameron saying Democrats "played it down" as it did not benefit their party.
"The leadership in the Democratic Party certainly discounts race when it's not somebody from their campaign or not somebody on their side of the aisle that is in the election. And that is what you saw here, is that they discounted it and they played it down, it didn't have much significance," Cameron told Fox Digital in a Thursday Zoom interview. The Senate candidate also serves as the CEO of the 1792 Exchange, which is a nonprofit focused on providing information to businesses, other nonprofits and philanthropy groups to shield against "woke" corporations.
"I do think the Democratic Party historically has focused on the identity of candidates. And that's why I tell folks that we don't need a country that's built on diversity, equity, inclusion. We need a county that's built on merit, excellence, intelligence and integrity. And that should be the case … not only in the corporate space or in industry, but in politics as well. Does a candidate connect with people? Does a candidate have the values of a particular community? That should be the focus," he said, adding that Republicans are all-in for supporting candidates with merit over identity.
Fox News Digital reached out to Obama's office for comment regarding his previous remarks on race and identity politics compared to the 2025 election but did not immediately receive a reply. Fox News Digital also reached out to the Winsome-Sears campaign for any post-election comment Thursday.
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Spanberger's campaign was rocked by an undercover video showing a campaign organizer lamenting the race pitted a "White woman who was in the CIA" against "a Black woman."
"CIA agent, literally, which is crazy, like yeah, vote for the CIA agent, guys, like what the f---," a campaign organizer for Spanberger said in a video with an undercover journalist in September that was first reported by Fox News Digital.
"I don't know what happened. We're in, like, the darkest timeline," she continued. "Our only choices are between a Black woman, which ordinarily all for, but this time you think we should bring back slavery, Winsome.… Even with that, it's like either vote for the Black woman who thinks that slavery should be brought back or vote for the White woman who was in the CIA."
Only two states across the country held gubernatorial elections this off-season election in 2025: New Jersey and Virginia. Earle-Sears was the only Black candidate to run for governor out of the four major-party candidates running in either state.
Cameron said that his tenure as Kentucky attorney general, as well as his run for the Senate, focus on his merit and policies, while encouraging that example be used by all politicians going forward.
"I want folks to focus on my values when I was the attorney general, certainly," he said. "I won, I think, 113 of 120 counties, and people didn't care what I looked like. They cared about my values. And so I'm optimistic that when it comes to the future of this country, people, here in Kentucky, and I think in Virginia, and a lot of places is: Do you stand with the America first agenda? Are you focused on standing with President Trump? And that's certainly something that I'm focused on in my race here for the Senate here in Kentucky."
