Abrams voting rights group draws tons of small donations, a few biggies

ATLANTA — The voting rights group that Stacey Abrams founded, Fair Fight, has raised more than $26 million since November 2018, with much of it coming from donors who give $10 or $25 at a time.

The group — which is helping to fund the efforts of Democratic Party groups across the country to make sure people get to vote in November — said it received more than 50,000 donations in the past few months.

A vast majority of that comes from outside Georgia because Abrams, a former state House Democratic leader and a potential presidential running mate, has national fundraising appeal and machinery.

Staffers talk about the small-dollar donations, as they did when she raised about $27 million when she ran for governor in 2018. She narrowly lost that contest to Brian Kemp, and Fair Fight was formed after the election.

However, there is a legal limit to how much donors can give to a candidate. There are no such limits for organizations such as Fair Fight’s political action committee, so the group has also drawn some big contributions to reach $26 million in such a short time.

Below are some of the top donors:

› $5 million from former New York City Mayor and one-time presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg.

› $1.029 million from Karla Jurvetson, a California physician, philanthropist and Democratic megadonor.

› $500,000 from Diana Blank of Montana, a philanthropist and former wife of Arthur Blank, the owner of Atlanta United and the Atlanta Falcons, and a co-founder of Home Depot.

› $500,000 from Oklahomabased Stacy Schusterman, the chairwoman of Samson Energy, a deepwater drilling company, and a philanthropist.

› $500,000 from the Service Employees International Union.

› $350,000 from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union.

› $250,000 from Reid Hoffman of California, a billionaire partner in the technology company Greylock Partners and a co-founder of LinkedIn.

› $250,000 from Eric Laufer of New York, the founder of a renewable energy company, Laufer Wind.

› $250,000 from S. Donald Sussman of Florida, a philanthropist and founder of Paloma Funds and a Democratic megadonor.