SALENA ZITO: The first GOP candidate in the swing 17th district is a Black pastor from Penn Hills.
Mr. Nelson’s decision to run comes at a time when Democrats — who often bank their ability to win on non-white voters — have seen a small but not insignificant number of minority voters turned off by the party’s apparent slide toward elitism.
Our interview came in the same week Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, launched his presidential campaign and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is seeking to become the state’s first Black governor, crushed all of his well-funded GOP primary opponents.
Both Mr. Scott and Mr. Cameron have faced racial remarks from some media, and some Democrats, that would in other contexts be considered terribly racist.
“In other contexts. . . .”