African-Americans can be a powerful voting bloc and they are learning how to use this power.
Almost four in 10 black adults (38 percent) say that working to get more Black people elected to office would be effective in achieving equality, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
Whites are less likely to view this as an effective way to bring about increased racial equality — 24 percent say it would be very effective.
A group of Black executives in the Black Economic Alliance are putting their money behind Black candidates. They have backed 14 House, Senate, and gubernatorial candidates.
Among the candidates is Democrat Mike Espy, former congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary. He’s in a three-way battle for a U.S. Senate seat from Mississippi, the state with the highest percentage of African-American residents in the nation, USA Today reported.
Other candidates being backed by the alliance include:
The 2-year-old Collective PAC, spent nearly $2 million supporting Andrew Gillum’s upset victory in last month’s gubernatorial primary in Florida. “Should the Democrat win in November, he would become Florida’s first Black chief executive,” TK reported.
“This is significant. This is an important moment in time because we recognize that Black Americans haven’t been able to participate as fully and as completely in the American Dream” as other groups, said Tony Coles, the group’s co-chairman and CEO of Yumanity Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based biotech company.
The alliance is made up of professionals from finance, high-tech, politics and media, including:
Mellody Hobson, the president of Chicago-based investment firm Ariel Investments, donated $250,000 to the group in June, according to its Federal Election Commission filings, USA Today reported.
On the alliance’s board are:
To date, the alliance has raised about $3.5 million. It’s using its money not only for Black democrat candidates. The alliance is nonpartisan and has backed non-Black candidates such as Democrat Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who’s looking to oust Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, as well as former Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen in a race against Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn for an open Senate seat.
“You need a coalition to get anything done in politics,” said Akunna Cook, the alliance’s executive director.