Bloomberg donates $2M to group looking to turn out black voters

Former 2020 Democratic contender Michael Bloomberg gave $2 million to a nonprofit working to register black voters ahead of November’s general election. 

The donation was made to Collective Future, which is the nonprofit arm of the Collective, a political action committee dedicated to supporting black candidates nationwide. 

The group is working to register 500,000 black voters in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin. 

The money will be put toward hiring field organizers “through partnerships with state-based and local Black-led grassroots organizations,” in addition to recruiting and training black churches, civic organizations and students of historically black colleges and universities interested in becoming partners and volunteers. 

“Voter suppression efforts across the country have been a barely-disguised effort to keep Black Americans and other Democratic-leaning voters from the polls,” Bloomberg, who dropped out of the race last week, said in a statement. “I’ve always believed we need to make it easier for all citizens to register and vote, not harder.”

Bloomberg previously donated $5 million to former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight organization, which works to combat voter suppression.

His donation to Collective Future comes as former Vice President Joe Biden handily won last week’s Super Tuesday contests, in large part due to receiving a groundswell of the black vote.