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The next president should have a plan to address racial inequities, dismantle structural racism and work meaningfully with our communities to push for racial justice.

The 2020 Racial Justice Presidential Candidate Scorecard summarizes the presidential candidates’ policy proposals through a racial equity lens across key areas including criminal justice reform, education, health care, voting rights, reparations, environmental justice, immigration, indigenous rights, and policies to close the racial wealth gap. We are offering this scorecard to elevate racial equity in the candidate selection process and to help voters who care about racial justice make an informed decision in 2020.

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THE RANKINGS

Click on the candidates to learn more about their views and scores. Scores will be updated as candidates’ positions evolve
(Final Update: 2/28/20).

elizabeth-warren

Elizabeth Warren

A-

92/100

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bernie-sanders

Bernie Sanders

a-

90/100

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joe-biden

Joe Biden

D

61.5/100

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1617878299-huge (1)

Michael
Bloomberg

F

59.25/100

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Gabbard

Tulsi Gabbard

F

55/100

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trump

Donald Trump

F

4.75/100

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Scoring

We scored candidates on a 0-10 scale in 10 policy categories. Candidates received points based on the amount of detail in their policy proposals, their on-record support of policies that will further racial equity, and the language they have used in debates and at public events.

Candidates were scored on the following topics:

  • Criminal Justice
  • Voting Rights
  • Racial Wealth Gap/ Housing
  • Indigenous Rights
  • Immigration
  • Environmental Justice
  • Health/ Reproductive Justice
  • Education Equity
  • Reparations
  • Record/ Rhetoric

For more information on the 2020 Racial Justice Presidential Candidate Scorecard, check out the candidate score details and methodology documents and the advocate toolkit. 

Candidate Score Details
Methodology
Advocate Toolkit
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Review

Our scorecard underwent a rigorous external review process to ensure that we were scoring candidates fairly and on the right issues. Special thanks to our partners and external reviewers for their critical feedback and review of the scorecard.

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The 2020 Racial Justice Presidential Scorecard was produced by the Center for Urban and Racial Equity, llc, a social change research and consulting collaborative. As racial equity practitioners, we are committed to sharing our skills, resources and revenues through nonprofit activities that elevate racial justice issues and build power with communities of color.

No outside financial assistance or sponsorship was used to produce this resource. We have no financial interests or interests in promoting a specific candidate. Our only agenda is racial justice.

© 2019 Center for Urban and Racial Equity |  Privacy Policy |  Contact Us 

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Elizabeth Warren

Senator Warren stands out among other candidates with a strong platform outlining specific strategies for targeting resources and policies to address racial inequities impacting Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities. Recognizing the ongoing affordable housing shortage across the country, Warren’s Housing Plan for America will invest $500 billion over 10 years to build, preserve and rehabilitate low-income rental housing. The plan is expected to reduce the costs of rental costs by 10%. With an explicit focus on reducing the Black-White racial wealth gap, Warren’s plan also includes a unique first-time homebuyer down payment assistance program for low-income people who have lived in formerly redlined or segregated neighborhoods for at least four years. Senator Warren’s proposal also strengthens the Community Reinvestment Act to require banks and other financial institutions meet needs of creditworthy low and moderate income borrowers and a $25 billion Capital Magnet Fund to finance economic development and community-based childcare facilities, workforce development center and health clinics in low-income neighborhoods. 

Despite the controversy surrounding her claims of Cherokee ancestry, Warren has proposed the Honoring Promises to Native Nations Act which addresses underfunding and barriers to sovereignty in Indigenous communities. Warren’s plan calls for investing in a loan repayment program for rural and Indigenous health professionals. Her plan would meaningfully invest in the education of Native American kids from birth through college. She supports Native Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to fill the gaps in access to capital. She supports the Native American Voting Rights Act which pushes for language justice within Indigenous communities and she acknowledges that shifting the nation’s relationship with Indigenous communities “will require structural change.” 

Senator Warren has proposed $50 billion in aid to HBCUs. She wants to increase teacher pay and work with HBCUs, non-profit minority serving institutions, and Bureau of Indian Education grantees to increase teacher diversity. She wants to pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act. Warren has a set of executive actions to “boost wages for women of color and open up new pathways to the leadership positions they deserve.” She has proposed a $400 billion research fund to look into place-based interventions specifically targeting the communities that need it most. She has plans to address racial disparities in maternal mortality and is a co-sponsor of the Affordability is Access Act, which provides low-cost access to over-the-counter birth control. Warren has pledged to accept 6 to 8 times the number of refugees as the Trump administration which would translate to over 200,000. Warren could improve her scores by solidifying her voting rights and immigration platforms.

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Bernie Sanders

Senator Sanders has historically led on a few issues with implications for racial equity. He introduced the Medicare for All Act in the Senate. Under Sanders’ Medicare for All the Department of Health and Human Services would be required to conduct an evaluation of health disparities, including racial and geographic disparities, and to submit a plan to Congress for addressing the disparities found in the evaluation. He is the only candidate calling for all people with felony convictions to be allowed to vote while in prison. Sanders has been a leader in pushing for a $15 minimum wage and other labor policies that will promote racial equity.  He has said he wants to remove the profit motive from our criminal justice re-entry system. Senator Sanders wants to move the U.S. away from a relationship of paternalism and control of Indigenous communities towards one of deference and support. His website acknowledges that redlining still exists and says he will work to end redlining practices and other forms of housing and lending discrimination. Sanders co-sponsored the Protect Access to Birth Control Act, which aims to repeal many of Trump’s birth control rules. Sanders has put forth the Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education which seeks to combat racial discrimination and school segregation and provide equitable funding for public schools. While slower to express his support than other candidates, Sanders has said he would sign the bill to study reparations if elected president. Some have looked to Sanders’ role at the University of Chicago chapter of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) and other Civil Rights era protests that he participated in as an example of his historical support for racial justice. In contrast, others have critiqued him for focusing on class or economic inequality while lacking an analysis on race and racism. He has for example, after the 2016 election, suggested that Democrats should move away from ‘identity politics’ and has struggled at times to articulate an understanding of the issues at the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement. Sanders could improve his score by developing policies that build wealth in communities of color, leading on immigration, and clarifying his voting rights platform.  

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Joe Biden

Former Vice President Biden has proposed strong plans for students of color, including student loan forgiveness and making community colleges tuition-free. His education plan would create universal pre-k, support teacher diversity, and “invest in our schools to eliminate the funding gap between white and non-white districts, and rich and poor districts.” Biden has not yet endorsed HR 40 or articulated support for reparations. Vice President Biden’s criminal justice platform states that he intends on decriminalizing marijuana, however, he supports reclassifying it from a Schedule I to Schedule II drug, which advocates argue is insufficient for addressing the federal-state conflicts in marijuana laws. Biden has not offered a detailed immigration plan. His website does not mention ICE and he has not taken a firm stand on reforming or abolishing the agency. Biden seemed confused by the idea of decriminalization of immigration during the September debate. He also has not released a policy plan for Indigenous communities. Many of Biden’s health care plans do not go far enough in addressing the needs of communities of color. This includes his support for a public option that preserves the existing private health insurance system rather than Medicare for All and his support for following the same blueprint as the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative to address maternal mortality among black women. Unlike most other Democratic candidates, Biden has not taken a position on the Climate Equity Act. Biden was a leader in promoting the War on Drugs and mass incarceration. His civility comments about segregationist senators, stance against school busing, and other questionable comments on race show a misunderstanding of what is needed in the current moment to achieve racial equity. Most of Biden’s plan do not explicitly mention race or racial inequity. The former VP could improve his score by coming out more strongly against ICE, working to repeal Section 1325, recommitting to marijuana legalization, developing policies for Indigenous communities, strengthening his votings rights platform, developing stronger policies to build wealth in communities of color, taking a stand in support of the Climate Equity Act, and reparations.  

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Michael Bloomberg

In launching his presidential campaign, former Mayor Micheal Bloomberg has offered some promising proposals to address racial inequities; however his record, especially on stop-and-frisk, should give any racial justice voter cause for concern. During his tenure, stop-and-frisk police stops exploded, with police making over 5 million stops of mostly Black and Latinx men and boys during Bloomberg’s three terms as mayor. Under the program, police could stop innocent people who they suspected were going to commit a crime and use this as an excuse to search them for weapons. When Black and brown residents and civil rights organizations called on the mayor to put an end to the program, Bloomberg doubled down, using racist stereotypes to justify targeting men of color despite evidence that the policy did not reduce crime. 

Stop-and-frisk was eventually ruled unconstitutional but not before it caused lasting harm to many New Yorkers of color. Anticipating it would be a challenge to his presidential campaign, Bloomberg only recently apologized for stop-and-frisk. Notably, he launched this campaign without offering policies to reform policing practices that continue to lead to criminal justice inequities and police killings of Black people.

Bloomberg’s Greenwood Initiative promises to create one million new Black homeowners over the next 10 years, create 100,000 new Black-owned businesses over the next decade, and invest more than $70 billion in disadvantaged communities. Similar to other Democratic candidates, Bloomberg has released a plan detailing several initiatives designed to decrease disparities in maternal health outcomes including the high death rate among Black women after giving birth. Bloomberg’s climate plans are focused on expanding environmental justice mapping and data-gathering to better address the needs of communities of color. While most other candidates support the Green New Deal, Bloomberg does not, and his climate plans are not as ambitious as the objectives outlined in the Green New Deal. 

Bloomberg is one of only a few candidates not to support marijuana legalization and has not been clear on his stance on eliminating mandatory minimums. Bloomberg has not released plans for universal pre-k, immigration, or protecting Indigenous rights and sovereignty. Bloomberg has received heavy criticism for his policies as mayor including his support for development projects which may have aided in gentrification and displacement of low -income people, racially insensitive comments that angered many Indigenous people, vetoing a bill that would have required any apartment with a child living in it to be inspected for lead paint, surveillance of Muslims, and suggestion to fingerprint public housing residents to prevent crime. 

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Tulsi Gabbard

Representative Gabbard has not released very many policy plans which makes it difficult to discern her real commitment to racial justice. Gabbard has previously supported the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act which aimed to decriminalize marijuana. She has co-sponsored the Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed, Safely Transitioning Every Person (FIRST STEP) Act, which authorized $75 million per year for five years to develop new education, vocational training, and mental health counseling programs for former prisoners. Gabbard has cosponsored and supported anti-discrimination legislation including the Fair and Equal Housing Act, Freedom from Discrimination in Credit Act, Juror Non-Discrimination Act, Student Non-Discrimination Act, Safe Schools Improvement Act, Do No Harm Act, and the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act. She has supported the National Nurses Act, which aimed to improve health literacy, decrease health disparities, and increase outreach and education. Gabbard correctly voted against the Native Hawaiian Education Act which sought to cut funding for public schools and target programs for children of color. Gabbard is a cosponsor of HR 40 which would create a commission to study reparations. Gabbard has spoken out about the need to address America’s history of “broken treaties and broken promises” but she has not released a formal policy for working with Indigenous communities. In 2015, she voted in favor of the Security Against Foreign Enemies Act designed to make it harder for Syrian and Iraqi refugees to enter the U.S. Gabbard could improve her score significantly by releasing plans for working with Indigenous communities, strengthening her immigration proposals especially around refugees,  and in general providing more plans and more clarity on exactly what a Gabbard presidency would do to advance racial equity.

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Donald Trump

President Trump’s rhetoric and policies have been detrimental to people of color. Trump has made the pathway to citizenship harder especially for immigrants who may require public assistance. He has tried to end DACA and has decreased the number of refugees accepted into the country each year to a record low of 45,000. Trump has reinforced his decision that the states should decide marijuana legalization. The Administration’s criminal justice approach has generally been in opposition to efforts to address glaring racial inequities. He has spoken out against bail reform and opposes measures that would help those previously incarcerated to find employment. Trump has encouraged voter suppression and supports voter ID laws. He has significantly rolled back labor protections. His tax cut made basic survival harder for many families of color and he has rescinded civil rights and anti-discrimination protections in a wide variety of areas. He has gotten rid of important environmental regulations and his most recent budget significantly reduces funding for early childhood development programs. From calling Mexican immigrants criminals as part of the 2016 campaign, to using profanity to describe Haiti and African nations as places where he’d like to stem immigration, to making racist comments about Congresswomen of color, attacking predominantly Black urban communities, to many other examples, President Trump’s policies and rhetoric around race have stood in clear contrast to a vision for racial justice in the U.S. 

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