Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum draw cash from same bank of national donors

The biggest donors to both Gillum and Abrams have been Soros and his family. Soros donated $1.2 million to Gillum’s Forward Florida PAC and $21,000 to Abrams’ campaign, the maximum allowable. Soros has also donated $1 million to the Georgia Democratic Party, which is heavily backing Abrams. His daughter, Andrea , and sons, Alex and Jonathan, have also given to both candidates.

“In both cases, Mr. Soros has a long-standing relationship with the candidate,” said Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Soros. “They all share the same set of values. It was a natural that he would support them in their campaigns for higher office.”

Steyer, meanwhile, has given nearly $13,000 to Abrams and $6,000 to Gillum. His affiliated political non-profit, NextGen Climate America, has written much bigger checks, donating $2.8 million overall to Gillum’s Forward Florida.

“Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum represent the future of the Democratic Party,” said Aleigha Cavalier, a spokeswoman for Steyer. “They tell the truth about issues facing Americans today and are bringing people into our political system who have either felt shut out or have not been given a reason to participate — and other Democrats would be well served to follow in their footsteps.”

Steyer and Soros have been joined by a host of other major donors in backing both candidates, including:

▪ Oakland real estate developer Wayne Jordan, who has given $21,000 to Abrams and $50,000 to Gillum.

▪ Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who gave $21,000 to Abrams and $6,000 to Gillum’s committees.

▪ Silicon Valley couple Liz Simons, daughter of Robert Mercer’s former hedge fund partner James Simons, and husband Mark Heising, who gave more than $365,000 to the Gillum-connected groups and $23,000 combined to Abrams’ campaign.

▪ Comedian and entertainment executive Byron Allen, who gave $6,600 to Abrams and $25,000 to Gillum.

▪ Children’s book author Judy Blume, who has given $2,000 to Abrams and $3,000 to Gillum

Former U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Florida Democrat traced the origins of this network to the individual donors who backed former President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Meek said he was able to turn to these donors for support during his ultimately unsuccessful 2010 bid for U.S. Senate.

“I kind of caught the second generation of that,” he said. “Now we’re in the 5.0 generation of that.”

The coast-to-coast support for Abrams and Gillum represents a break from the past, says James Rucker, who co-founded the group Color of Change, which advocates to improve the lives of black Americans and has a related political committee.

“Your typical donor base on the Democratic side hasn’t really embraced qualified black candidates, especially in the South,” said Rucker, who has himself given $1,000 to Abrams and $2,000 to Gillum.

And Rucker says that support has been all the more striking because Abrams and Gillum haven’t shied away from confronting issues of racism during the campaign.

“You’ve got candidates who are embracing the conversation around race and around serious progressive issues,” he said.

Kathy Mangum, a Pasadena-based executive at the Walt Disney Co., says she was inspired to support Abrams because of what she perceived as Trump’s racially sulfurous rhetoric, particularly his statements blaming “both sides” for violence during a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“There’s nothing more powerful than the symbolism of a black woman running in the deep South,” Mangum said. “I like her politics, too.”

She’s given $500 to Abrams campaign and a total of $6,000 to support Gillum. She said she met Gillum at a fundraising dinner in California, long before he won the party’s nomination.

“I was over the moon when he pulled that off,” she said of his surprise victory in the primary.

If Gillum or Abrams is able to continue their success next week on Election Day, Rucker said it could make the path easier for African American candidates in the future.

“If we have even one of them win, I think it will change the conventional wisdom,” he said. “It becomes a template for what could happen elsewhere.”

Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/latest-news/article220919575.html#storylink=cpy

UPDATED NOVEMBER 02, 2018 02:3

>>12226658

A leaked Stacey Abrams memo sketches a Democratic race to come

Jim Galloway

Sometimes, a political campaign will leak a secret strategy memo that isn't secret at all, simply to exploit the thrill that comes from reading other people's mail.

And sometimes a red stamp at the top that says “CONFIDENTIAL” means exactly that.

It arrived over the transom.

• Now that I’ve typed the word, I probably need to explain that this is an ancient metaphor, killed long ago by air-conditioning. A transom was the small, often open window above a door that allowed air to circulate when an office was locked. Think Sam Spade in 1941.

• Georgia Democrats are about to get serious about a contest that is already testing their party’s biracial cohesiveness. Abrams is the former House minority leader from Atlanta. She is African-American. Her rival, Stacey Evans of Smyrna, is also a former House member. She is white.

• One sign that the transomed Abrams memo was intended for a closed circle is the bluntness of some of the language, and a frank discussion of the lines of attack likely to come from Evans in the weeks ahead. And we’ll get to that in a few paragraphs.

•The memo was written by Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams’ campaign manager, and its purpose can be deduced from the date of transmission: Feb. 1, seven days before Abrams’ latest campaign finance report was to become public.

• Today, in other words.

• The Abrams campaign has raised $1.7 million in the last seven months, and $2.2 million overall, the memo said. For a Georgia Democrat, that’s impressive. But it is her cash on hand that required explanation: “Roughly $450,000.”

• Actually, the sum currently available to Abrams could be significantly smaller. Many checks gathered up by a candidate are often designated for future campaign spending in a runoff or general election. We’ll know soon enough.

• According to the norms of campaigning, using up 80 percent of your cash four months before a primary isn’t a high burn rate. It’s a forest fire.

•Not to worry, wrote Groh-Wargo. She explained that the Abrams campaign deliberately decided that it wouldn’t follow the “save and hold” model that reserves huge spending for TV advertising in the final weeks of a contest — a “model that has been the losing formula for Georgia campaigns.”

• The memo claimed that voter drives, digital work and such done last year have given Abrams “a structural advantage in the primary electorate that is expected to be over 65 percent African American.”

•To that end, the memo indicated that Abrams will demand that she be considered the presumed frontrunner in the Democratic primary contest. The “two Staceys” meme used by the media — and many party activists, in order to avoid choosing a side — is “racially reductive,” Groh-Wargo asserted.

(On the other hand, if you Google “Stacey Abrams” and “first African-American woman governor,” the 12,800 articles that immediately come up indicate that someone else has been engaged in racial reductivity, too.)

But it is the media’s tendency to create false equivalencies that annoys, the memo told financial boosters. Abrams is a “Yale law school-educated attorney” who led the House caucus for six years and “has a robust private sector background.”

The Abrams campaign also has a handle on attacks headed its way. “We’ve already begun to see efforts aimed at using Abrams’ status as a single woman to disqualify her on family issues,” Groh-Wargo wrote. “Obviously, given that she comes from a close-knit family, this is a ridiculous assertion.”

There’s an IRS lien in Abrams’ past as well – placed by the tax man during negotiations. Which Abrams won, the memo assured fundraisers.

But this may be the most interesting tidbit in the communique:

"The Evans team seems to be in conversation with Vincent Fort, a former State Senator, about a run for Lieutenant Governor as he might serve as their spokesperson on negative attacks against Abrams…

"In sum: the Evans campaign, and potentially the Evans-Fort ticket, may attempt to portray Abrams as a radical, corrupt, Atlanta politician."

•It is important to note that Abrams and Fort were not close friends when both were in the state Capitol. Fort, while admitting that he’s contemplating a run for statewide office, said he considers the Abrams memo insulting.

• “When politicians talk more about the inside game, it’s an indication that they’ve forgotten what’s important,” said Fort when I called him Tuesday morning. “By the way, after 21 years in the Legislature, passing some of the most important legislation in the history of the state, it’s kind of demeaning to characterize me as essentially an attack dog.”

Afterwards, a spokeswoman for the Abrams campaign spoke freely about most of the leaked memo, but declined to respond to Fort’s remarks.

https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/leaked-stacey-abrams-memo-sketches-democratic-race-come/92ycDMgvyaweoYg7jO4hwN/