Are Democrats better off with an African-American candidate?

[Mister Mets]

Nick Spencer, a comic book writer who has been involved in politics, had some interesting speculation on the Democratic primary for 2020. He believes that Democrats would be best off nominating an African American candidate for General Election turnout, but that Elizabeth Warren is very well-positioned, and that Kamala Harris and Cory Booker might end up splitting the primary vote.

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Should Democrats favor African-American candidates? Would there be increased turnout for someone who wants to be the second black President?

[Mister Mets]

If they ran candidates just because they're black, they deserve to lose.

That's not the argument.

One way to think about it is that there are several individuals who are plausible presidential nominees (Elizabeth Warren, Kristen Gilibrand, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Tim Kaine, etc.) Two happen to be African-American. The question is whether there are significant advantages to nominating one of those two individuals rather than someone else.