• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. election 2020>

Steyer, Bloomberg pledge $60 million to boost turnout

Our Staff
November 21, 2019
Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer

Both billionaires' efforts will focus in part on registering young voters.

Getty Images

Now there are two New York billionaires with the presidency on their minds who are opening their wallets big-time to register voters in battleground states.

On Monday the progressive advocacy group NextGen America announced plans to spend $45 million in the next year to register and turn out people in 11 states that both the Democratic nominee and President Trump will be targeting. The group was founded and is financed by investor and philanthropist Tom Steyer, who started his Democratic presidential bid in July.

And on Wednesday top aides to Michael Bloomberg signaled that, whether he joins the crowded Democratic field or not in the coming weeks, he will pour between $15 million and $20 million into bolstering the ranks of progressives signed up to vote in just five big purple states.

The back-to-back announcements are the latest reflections of the enormous amounts of cash that will flood the 2020 campaign as well as the expectation that turnout in a handful of places could decide whether Trump is re-elected.


Last week Bloomberg, the media mogul and former mayor, unveiled a $100 million online advertising campaign attacking Trump in four swing states as well.

His additional effort will reportedly seek to register 500,000 black, Latino, Asian, young and rural voters starting early next year in five states the president won in 2016: Michigan and Wisconsin, which he carried by less than a percentage point each; Arizona and North Carolina, where his margin was 3 points; and Texas, which he won by 9 points but has since undergone enough demographic change to give the Democrats hope for their first presidential win in 44 years.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The Steyer-connected drive will target four of the same states (but not Texas) and also Florida, Iowa, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Some of those states, notably Maine, were added to the list because the Democrats have an opening to flip Senate seats there.

NextGen America — from which Steyer resigned as president after starting his campaign — says the goal is to sign up at least 270,000 new voters younger than 35 and then get them to the polls along with 330,000 who are already on the rolls.

"If Mike runs, we're going to try to do what we can to run two campaigns simultaneously," Bloomberg's senior advisor Howard Wolfson told the Associated Press. Beyond the Democratic contest, he added, "there's another campaign going on that the president has begun that ends in November that also needs to be engaged. And one of the arguments that we would make on behalf of Mike to primary voters is he is able to wage these two campaigns simultaneously — effectively and simultaneously."
From Your Site Articles
  • Vote Latino marks surge in Latino voter registrations - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Billionaire Steyer says billionaire Bloomberg must meet voters ... ›
  • Bloomberg, Steyer Add Even More to Their Election Contributions ›
election 2020

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

How a college freshman led the effort to honor titans of democracy reform

Jeremy Garson

Our poisonous age of absolutism

Jay Paterno

Re-imagining Title IX: An opportunity to flex our civic muscles

Lisa Kay Solomon

'Independent state legislature theory' is unconstitutional

Daniel O. Jamison

How afraid are we?

Debilyn Molineaux

Politicians certifying election results is risky and unnecessary

Kevin Johnson
latest News

How the anti-abortion movement shaped campaign finance law and paved the way for Trump

Amanda Becker, The 19th
24 June

Podcast: Journalist and political junkie Ken Rudin

Our Staff
24 June

A study in contrasts: Low-turnout runoffs vs. Alaska’s top-four, all-mail primary

David Meyers
23 June

Video: Team Democracy Urges Citizens to Sign SAFE Pledge

Our Staff
23 June

Podcast: Past, present, future

Our Staff
23 June

Video: America's vulnerable elections

Our Staff
22 June
Videos

Video: Memorial Day 2022

Our Staff

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Bridge Alliance intern Sachi Bajaj speaks at the June 12 Civvy Awards.

How a college freshman led the effort to honor titans of democracy reform

Leadership
abortion law historian Mary Ziegler

How the anti-abortion movement shaped campaign finance law and paved the way for Trump

Campaign Finance
Podcast: Journalist and political junkie Ken Rudin

Podcast: Journalist and political junkie Ken Rudin

Media
Abortion rights and anti-abortion protestors at the Supreme Court

Our poisonous age of absolutism

Big Picture
Virginia primary voter

A study in contrasts: Low-turnout runoffs vs. Alaska’s top-four, all-mail primary

Video: Team Democracy Urges Citizens to Sign SAFE Pledge

Video: Team Democracy Urges Citizens to Sign SAFE Pledge

Voting