Senate Democrats released demographic data on their staff Thursday, revealing new figures on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender diversity in the party’s upper chamber offices.
The Senate Democratic Caucus’s 2023 demographic survey numbers include percentages of staff members who identify as Latino, Black or African American, Asian or Pacific Islander (AAPI), Middle Eastern or North African, Native American, or Hawaiian or Alaskan. The data also shows the percentages of staff members who identify as male, female and LGBTQ.
The Senate Democrats Diversity Initiative aims to update the survey annually with the self-reported results. Their Republican colleagues don’t release similar data.
Here are some takeaways from the new data:
Hawaii senators have most racially diverse offices
Hawaii’s two Democratic senators, Sens. Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz, had the two most racially diverse staffs in their offices, according to the new data.
More than two-thirds of both the Aloha State’s senators’ offices selected nonwhite options in the survey — 71 percent of Hirono’s staff and 68 percent of Schatz’s.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (D) also ranked high in the category, with 67 percent of his staff identifying as nonwhite.
Hirono and Schatz also have the highest percentages of AAPI staff members in their offices, with 56 and 50 percent, respectively. The next-highest percentage in that category is the office of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with 22 percent of staff members identifying as AAPI.
Kaine has highest ratio of women staffers
Nearly 8 in 10 staffers in Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D) office identify as female, according to the data.
Exactly three-quarters of the staff members in Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley’s identify as female, as do 69 percent of staff members in Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s (D) office.
Just 41 percent of staffers in the office of Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) identify as female, though her office was one of a number for which respondents indicated a classification other than male or female, according to the survey data.
Georgia, Maryland senators have highest percentage of Black staff
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D) office employs the highest ratio of Black staffers, who make up 40 percent of his office.
His fellow Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) and Maryland’s two Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen each employs a staff with 30 percent of members identifying as Black.
New Jersey’s Booker employs a staff with 27 percent of members identifying as Black. Closely behind him was Michigan’s Stabenow, with 26 percent.
More than a quarter of Pennsylvania senators’ offices are LGBTQ
The offices of Pennsylvania’s two Democratic senators showed the highest percentages of LGBTQ staff.
Thirty percent of staff members in Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-Pa.) personal offices identify as LGBTQ, as do 28 percent of staff members in Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-Pa.) office.
Twenty-nine percent of staffers in Washington Sen. Patty Murray’s (D) office identify as LGBTQ.
Manchin has least racially diverse office
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) has the least racially diverse office staff, according to the data, with just 12 percent of his office identifying as nonwhite.
Just 5 percent of Manchin’s office staff identify as Black, 5 percent identify as AAPI and 2 percent identify as Latino. Notably, no staffers in Manchin’s office identified as LGBTQ in the survey.
Just 13 percent of Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s (D) staff identify as nonwhite, and 15 percent of staff in the offices of Maine Sen. Angus King and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen identify as nonwhite.
Markey, Feinstein offices most improved in racial diversity
The nonprofit Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Thursday released an analysis ranking the offices for most and least improved diversity from last year’s data.
Racial diversity for staff in the office of Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey (D) went up 12 percentage points between 2022 and 2023, according to the analysis.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D) office improved by 10 percentage points, and Hawaii’s Schatz’s office improved by 8 percentage points.
Murray, Carper, Warnock least improved in racial diversity
Racial diversity for staff in the offices of Washington’s Murray went down 16 percentage points from last year, according to the Joint Center.
The offices of Delaware Sen. Tom Carper (D) and Georgia’s Warnock went down 13 points each in racial diversity. Warnock’s fellow Georgia senator Ossoff also saw his office go down 8 points in racial diversity — despite the pair still leading the chamber in the percentage of Black staff members in their offices.