Black political candidates will make their final appeal to voters Tuesday in key primary elections that include a black lawyer running for governor of Massachusetts; former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume vying for a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland and two black council members locked in a tight race for mayor of Washington, D.C.

In one of the most closely-watched races in the nation, Mfume, a former Maryland congressman, is challenging Maryland Rep. Ben Cardin for the U.S. Senate Democratic nomination.

The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face Republican Lt. Governor Michael Steele in the general election in November. If Mfume wins the primary election, running against Steele would set up a race between two black candidates, assuring that Maryland’s next U.S. senator would be black.

On Sunday, Mfume visited several black churches in the Baltimore area, and he has spent more than a year campaigning in predominantly black and voter-rich Prince George’s County. Mfume’s campaign was distributing more than 60,000 brochures while the Cardin campaign was planning to place calls to 250,000 Maryland voters.

Meanwhile, Steele, Maryland’s first black lieutenant governor, has raised more money than Mfume and Cardin and is backed by President George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

Steele, who often gets media coverage because of controversial comments, said two weeks ago that he didn’t want Bush to campaign with him because Bush is experiencing low approval ratings. Steele has since clarified his position, saying he’d welcome the president’s support.

Steele is also one of the GOP’s top black candidates in 2006, and Republicans are hoping Steele will appeal to black voters. In what many considered an outreach to blacks, Steele was recently endorsed by hip-hop icon Russell Simmons and businesswoman Cathy Hughes, owner of Radio One (which owns a controlling stake in Reach Media Inc., the parent company of BlackAmericaWeb.com.). Only time will tell if Simmons’ endorsement will resonate with black voters and younger blacks in particular.

Steele, according to political analysts, is working all sides of the political spectrum: soliciting support from prominent black professionals like Simmons and Hughes, while still a steadfast Republican with ties to Bush. The president remains extremely unpopular with many black voters, in part because of Bush’s decision for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq.

Republicans, however, say they only need a small percentage of black voter support to put their candidates over the top.

Tara Wall, senior advisor for the Republican National Committee, told BlackAmericaWeb.com that Steele "has a real opportunity for victory." She added that Steele "is uniquely qualified
to lead."

But Ron Walters, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, predicts that Steele will lose the election, perhaps to Mfume, who has been endorsed by several members of the Congressional Black Caucus, as well as former Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening.

"Mfume is competitive, and he has a legitimate shot," Walters told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "This race has drawn the attention of two credible black candidates."

On the stump, Mfume continues to appeal to all voters, and particularly to Maryland’s black and multi-cultural community.

"We'll both be a vote," Mfume said during a recent debate with Cardin. "But I'll be a vote and a voice."

In the race for mayor of Washington, D.C., the two front runners -- D.C. Council member Adrian Fenty and Council President Linda Cropp -- will face off in D.C.’s primary election. D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams is not running for re-election.

Fenty is poised to embark on what political analysts describe as the largest voter outreach campaign in D.C. history. His campaign has more than 1,000 volunteers, a data base of more than 45,000 voters, and $500,000 for radio and TV ads. Cropp has about $200,000 for the final stretch.

In D.C., where the majority of voters are Democrats, the Democratic nominee is usually guaranteed victory in November.

Both candidates have been stumping hard and crisscrossing the city for votes. Although Cropp, 58, has been a political fixture in D.C. much longer than Fenty, 35, her younger opponent, The Washington Post nonetheless endorsed Fenty for mayor in a lengthy editorial last week.

"The 2006 mayoral campaign is all about the District's future in a dynamic and uncertain environment. Democrats inclined to vote their fears may look elsewhere," The Post editorial said. "A vote for hope, however, is a vote for Adrian Fenty."

Walters told BlackAmericaWeb.com the D.C. mayor’s race is a study in generational politics.

"It’s the politics of old and new," Walters said. "Cropp didn’t help herself by hiring some of [D.C. Council member Marion] Barry’s campaign people; she should have kept them at arm’s length."

Walters said younger voters, both black and white, who are moving to D.C. are likely to support Fenty, who is a younger candidate with new ideas.

"He has positioned himself very well for this job," Walters said. "The poll numbers suggest that people don’t want business as usual. They want a fresh face, and they can identify with a young, aggressive lawyer to run the city."

On his website, Fenty said his "will be a campaign that begins a new era of accountability in the District of Columbia."

But some D.C. voters say they prefer Cropp’s 26-year public service record to Fenty, a political newcomer by comparison.

"I’m for Linda Cropp because I know she can get things done. She puts her heart and soul into making our community a better place for all of us," said Kurt Vorndran, a D.C. resident who was quoted on Cropp’s website.

In Massachusetts, former Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick is running for Governor of Massachusetts. The Democratic primary is September 19.

Patrick, 50, a lawyer and former assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration, is in a close primary battle with state Attorney General Tom Reilly and Boston venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli.

The winner will face Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey to succeed Gov. Mitt Romney, who decided not to seek a second term. If Healey wins, she would be the first woman elected governor in Massachusetts.

Should Patrick win the September 19 primary and the general election, he would be the state's first black governor and could be only the second black person ever elected governor in the nation. Two other black Republican candidates -- Kenneth Blackwell and Lynn Swann -- are running for governor this year in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"I know that this is America, so race is on people's minds, but the welcome has been warm, and look at what we've built, look at it: We've got 20,000 contributors and volunteers across the commonwealth," Patrick told the Associated Press. "We've got a broader, deeper organization than this commonwealth has ever seen."

---

Associated Press contributed to this story.