MS NOW legal analyst Charles Coleman Jr. warned Monday that Democrats are “missing the mark” when it comes to winning over Black voters.
The criticism came during an appearance on “Money, Power, Politics with Stephanie Ruhle,” where the host raised a striking statistic out of Ohio.
“There are 100,000 registered Black voters that have not voted in the last three elections,” Ruhle said.
She then pressed Coleman on why the party has not done more to reach them.
“Why do you think Democrats have not spent more time and more money reaching voters there?” Ruhle asked.
Coleman pointed to Ken Martin’s unofficial autopsy of the DNC as the first sign of what was going on, both in Ohio and across the country.
“What that revealed was something that many people who I know have been talking about for a very long time, which is, Democrats have a big tent but have not invested in big tent messaging,” Coleman said.
Ruhle pushed back, noting the challenge of speaking to such a broad coalition.
“That’s hard to do because a lot of people in that tent want to hear different things!” she exclaimed.
Coleman acknowledged the difficulty but stood by his point, drawing on a lesson from his childhood.
“I’m not saying it’s easy, but what I’m saying is — when I was young, if I wanted McDonald’s, my mom would say to me, ‘You got McDonald’s money?’” Coleman said. “If you want to have a big tent, then you have to make the investment and really targeting certain audiences.”
The analyst compared the situation to a student making excuses in school. A student cannot tell one teacher that homework went undone because of a heavy load in another class, he explained, because that teacher simply does not care.
In the same way, Coleman argued, Democrats cannot tell one community that they were too busy focusing on the big tent, or on another community, to speak directly to the issues that matter most to them.
“That doesn’t work,” he said. “And so, when we’re in this conversation, there are a lot of people who are like, ‘Look, what’s in it for me? What are you going to do for me?’”
Coleman then laid out the economic concerns weighing on Black Americans. He noted that Black unemployment is currently above 7%, higher than any other group in the country.
He also pointed to wealth gaps in Black America, which he said have dipped by 25% on average from 2022 to 2025.
“That is something that people are very much so concerned about,” Coleman said.
While Coleman was quick to add that Republicans “don’t represent the answer,” he made clear that the burden falls on Democrats to show voters a plan.
“But the question becomes, when you’re talking about Democrats, ‘How are you going to fix it? What are you going to do about it?’” Coleman said. “That’s where Democrats are missing the mark.”
Ruhle offered a blunt response of her own.
“They might not have the answer,” she added.
