A network of Democratic donors and operatives are organizing an ambitious effort to elect African-American candidates for governor and Congress in 2018 — politicians who have often been overlooked by the party’s predominantly white leadership in past years.

They see the 2018 elections as a crucial opportunity to elect a wave of black candidates, especially to governorships, where only two African-Americans have been elected in U.S. history but a half-dozen prominent hopefuls are running this year. Many organizers also see running strong black candidates as a key way to inspire higher African-American voter turnout that will boost the whole Democratic Party in November.


But their efforts are also motivated by weariness, some said, of watching local and national Democratic groups — and the largely white donors who fund political campaigns — pass over promising African-American politicians before, even during the Obama era, when many expected the election of the nation’s first black president to usher in more black officials in his wake.

“There have been historical challenges with candidates of color receiving support from institutions, both the party and progressive groups. The history’s there,” said Quentin James, co-founder of Collective PAC, an incubator and PAC for African-American candidates. “There’s a challenge there of, I’m calling it imagination, but some call it viability. ‘Can the black candidate win?’ ‘Can the Latino candidate win?’"

Morning Score newsletter Your guide to the permanent campaign — weekday mornings, in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

As the midterms draw close, Collective PAC and others are marshaling millions of dollars — and trying to prod the Democratic establishment into pledging millions more — to campaigns and super PACs aiding a new slate of African-American office-seekers.

A Democratic donor has already contributed $1.25 million in Georgia to help Stacey Abrams, who is seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination Tuesday and would be the nation’s first black female governor. Collective PAC has pushed Democratic Party committees to pledge to help black hopefuls raise money and provide campaign infrastructure in major House races and other elections. And a team of black CEOs have formed a new donor group to support black candidates, with a likely priority on governor’s races this year, according to sources briefed on the group’s plans.

In addition to the dearth of black governors, few black Democrats in Congress represent districts that are not majority- or plurality-black, though at least six are running in majority-white potential battleground districts this fall. But former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile noted at a recent Collective PAC fundraiser in Washington that young black politicians seeking office have been viewed as disruptive rather than encouraged in the past.

“The fact that you are going to support, raise money, try to build a bench, and put more people in the pipeline to run for governor and lieutenant governor — you’re going to get in trouble,” Brazile said, as attendees lunched on plates of salmon and asparagus. “Barack Obama, when he first ran for United States Senate — we got in trouble because we raised money for him.”

Abrams and Tallahassee, Fla., Mayor Andrew Gillum are among several promising black candidates running for governor this year, and they have attracted the most interest from the donors and organizations. Collective PAC plans to spend $1.5 million this year on Gillum’s behalf.

Several federal races have also become marquee attractions: Lauren Underwood, who is working to flip a predominantly white Illinois House district, is gaining national interest. So is Colin Allred, a former NFL player and HUD attorney who is in a primary runoff in the Dallas suburbs on Tuesday. Others are hoping to muster resources for Mississippi Senate candidate Mike Espy, who is aiming to follow in Alabama Sen. Doug Jones' footsteps as the next Democrat to win a Senate seat in the Deep South.

Allred, who initially lagged behind his Democratic opponents in fundraising, said that he felt he needed to win the first round of his primary election — which he did, advancing to the runoff with nearly 40 percent of the vote — in order to "really get people to be involved" with his race.

“I’ve talked to a lot of my fellow African-American candidates around the country and we all have the same feeling that it’s probably harder for us, initially, to get off the ground with fundraising,” Allred said.

Greg Edwards, a congressional candidate who lost a primary this month in a predominantly white district in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, led all of his Democratic opponents in fundraising but failed to attract significant outside spending support, unlike his top two opponents.

"The Democratic Party, in nonblack and [non]brown-majority districts, has a history of viewing black and brown candidates as unviable and with a great deal of suspicion," said Edwards, a pastor who was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

"Donors are looking for people with a certain profile,” Edwards added, and “candidates of color are automatically never going to be seen as the most viable option.”

Collective PAC has used the public stage to call attention to favored candidates. The DCCC’s initial “Red to Blue” list of top candidates last year didn’t include any black candidates. Collective PAC publicized a letter to the DCCC about the list, and the group asked the DNC and other party groups to commit to recruiting and training more candidates of color, as well as convening donors to discuss funding the new plan by the end of the year.

The DCCC responded quickly to Collective PAC’s questions, James said. And after the March primaries, the DCCC added Underwood and Allred to the “Red to Blue” list.

“We are proud to have a diverse Red to Blue program and to be working with a historic number of women and diverse candidates across our targeted battlefield, and we will continue to build on that important work as we fight to take back the House,” DCCC Director of African-American Media Kamau Marshall said.

In Georgia, where Abrams is running in a competitive primary against fellow Democrat Stacey Evans, Democratic donor Susan Sandler has spent $1.25 million on a super PAC during the primary election, and Sandler plans to round up $10 million — including her own money and pledges from others — to support Abrams this year. Abrams’ campaign is crucial to Sandler and her husband, Steve Phillips, both because of her historic candidacy and because of her focus on turning out black voters.

Especially after Donald Trump’s victory turned many Democrats’ attention to wooing white working-class voters, efforts to mobilize black Democrats aren’t in vogue among megadonors, said Phillips.

“You have this voting bloc that is there for the asking and nobody wants to ask, and nobody wants to invest,” Phillips said. “People are concerned about Russia and Facebook.”

Phillips argues that the entire Democratic Party would benefit. Black voter turnout spiked during the Obama presidency, but it dropped down to previous levels in 2016, according to Census data. But put more African-American candidates on the ballot, Phillips and others say, and turnout in this key Democratic bloc will rise again.

Still, in the big-money world of statewide and federal elections, where the super PACs linked to organizations such as EMILY’s List spent upwards of $35 million in 2016, the buy-in to help candidates compete can run in the tens of millions of dollars. None of the super PACs focused on helping black candidates come close yet.

But they are growing: BlackPAC, a super PAC that draws money from Democratic heavyweights such as the SEIU and Priorities USA, has spent $3 million so far this cycle, which is the same amount that it spent in total during the 2016 elections.

Then there is a highly anticipated new entry: the not-yet-unveiled Black Economic Alliance, a coalition of black business executives who have been formalizing plans for a political organization over the last year. The group is spearheaded by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Director N. Anthony Coles, executive Gerald S. Adolph and Infor CEO Charles Phillips, according to documents filed with the IRS and the Federal Election Commission.

The Black Economic Alliance has considered investing millions of dollars in governors races, including in Gillum’s race in Florida, according to people briefed on the group’s planning — but it has not announced its plans for the midterms. Charles Phillips and a representative from the group did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Gillum’s primary is shaping up as a key bellwether for all of the groups. His three Democratic competitors have either millions of dollars they can loan themselves or the priceless asset of a family legacy in politics, Collective PAC’s James pointed out.

Gillum was the first in his family to graduate from college and had $1.4 million in his campaign account as of the end of April; his competitors’ campaigns had between $2.5 million and $5 million. But Gillum has still caught the attention of progressives during his campaign, winning endorsements from the likes of the Bernie Sanders-inspired Our Revolution group. And though Gillum hasn't come close to matching his opponents fundraising, one of the biggest donors in the Democratic party has taken notice: Financier George Soros has contributed $450,000 to causes supporting Gillum so far this year.

“He’s the best candidate of all the ones running,” James said. “But again — it’s a challenge with the money.”

Daniel Strauss contributed to this report.