Like many other obsessions of the pundit class, the 2016 hand wringing over the “white working class” ignored other factors that dragged the party down—namely, low and middle-income Black Democrats, who played a key role in the primary victories of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, while their levels of turnout in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania doomed Clinton in the 2016 general election, then put Joe Biden in the White House four years later.
These swings in turnout tell an obvious, if painful story: Democratic politicians mostly pay lip service to their Black constituents, only to chase desperately after their votes when election season comes. Another interpretation: Black voters don’t have much enthusiasm for Democratic policies, but they experience the dire consequences of conservative government and turn out to vote against incumbent Republicans.
This power to swing elections is why Adrianne Shropshire, a lifelong organizer and political activist, founded BlackPAC in conjunction with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation’s largest non-education union.
BlackPAC’s main stated goals are to engage Black voters and make sure their interests are properly served. This is accomplished the same way anything else gets done in American politics: a lot of money.
BlackPAC has dumped more than $29 million into outside spending in just four years, according to OpenSecrets, $23 million of which came during 2020. The group spends heavily on ads and get-out-the-vote efforts. BlackPAC was cited as a key player in organizing black voters for Doug Jones during the 2017 Alabama special senate election, where outside groups were responsible for a tidal wave of dark money. According to The Hill, in 2020, BlackPAC was behind massive canvassing campaigns for senate and other races in North Carolina, Michigan, and Georgia.
Along with the group’s own spending, BlackPAC also has a connected “social welfare,” or 501(c)(4) group, Black Progressive Action Coalition, which has spent some $8 million in the last few years.
A web of dark money, and a question about motives
In any high-dollar election, the natural question is “who’s paying?”
For something that appears outwardly altruistic—engaging Black voters and making sure their interests are represented—this question is even more intriguing. It’s not hard to figure out why profit-minded business associations or oligarchs want to support economic libertarian causes, but where’s the quid pro quo for empowering the nation’s most historically underrepresented constituency?
The paper trail gives a few clues: Along with SEIU, wealthy Democratic Party organizations have gifted BlackPAC with six-figure contributions, including Priorities Action USA, Majority Forward and Senate Majority Fund. Other contributors to BlackPAC and Black Progressive Action Coalition include Propel Capital Network LLC, a liberal investment fund, and Sixteen Thirty Fund, a massive dark-money group that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to fund liberal political causes.
Let’s start by considering the sunniest possible interpretation of these contributions: Liberal groups want to do good, and organizing, engaging and helping Black voters in their struggle for recognition is simply a worthy cause.
The next, and likely more plausible explanation, is that these liberal groups recognize the power of Black voters to swing elections and are now funding organizations that will help politicians better serve this key constituency, thereby increasing Black turnout (and improving the likelihood of Democratic victories). This is the kind of interpretation that many activists and their fundraisers could live with, and a pretty good pitch to big donors.
“But for us, the question is, thinking about candidates who hold the priorities that we hold and that our members and supporters hold, that are running in races that we think are going to be important to moving and delivering on solutions to critical issues facing Black communities,” Shropshire told The Hill in the weeks before the 2020 election.
This is a familiar pitch in politics — even if candidates aren't perfect, you organize to win where you can and deliver for the people you care about.
The final, and more dyspeptic way of looking at an organization like BlackPAC, is that the tail is wagging the dog. Shropshire and BlackPAC leadership, in this view of things, present themselves as champions of Black political power, holding politicians’ feet to the fire on issues like criminal justice, jobs and segregation. In reality, BlackPAC is taking money from the same people who have always funded Democratic politics, using racial justice as a smokescreen to turn out reliable blue votes in Black neighborhoods, while the party continues primarily to advocate on behalf of wealthy donors, suburban moderates and urban white yuppies.
These possible interpretations of BlackPAC's fundraising and activism are not mutually exclusive. Just because wealthy funders may be trying to turn out Black voters with little concern for true racial justice does not mean BlackPAC itself is just a sock poppet; nor does it mean that increased Black turnout will lead Democratic politicians to an epiphany regarding the need to pursue policies to help Black voters more aggressively.
But these are open questions, and with Senate races in Georgia that may soon decide whether Democrats will command a unified government, don't expect BlackPAC or their wealthy donors to go away anytime soon.
