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There are bright spots for Republicans. Michigan challenger John James has been one of the game’s best online fundraisers, beating Democratic Senator Gary Peters several quarters in a row. Senator Martha McSally has consistently led her colleagues in small dollar donations, making her one of the best fundraisers in the party running this cycle alongside majority leader Mitch McConnell, who also raises large amounts of money online. . But they face Mark Kelly and Amy McGrath, respectively, who have broken fundraising records with even bigger online shows.
Trump is one of the best dollar fundraisers in history, directing donors to vote for Republican WinRed pages when tweeting endorsements. He has spent more than $ 50 million on Facebook ads alone since May 2018, strengthening its network of small dollars and building a larger online donor base for the entire Republican Party, as it attracts some of the party’s voters to adopt digital donations.
Still, “there is a huge fear that when Trump leaves the stage, Republicans will be logarithmically behind in terms of small dollar donors,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. “The traditional model is slowly dying.”
‘For a long time, members did not understand the potential’
Republicans took a key step in tackling Democrats’ online fundraising dominance last year, when WinRed launched and became the central center for Republican Party money. Donors gave candidates a record $ 275 million through the platform in the second quarter, more than the previous three quarters combined.
But technological capacity is only a problem, Republican agents said. The party is still fighting for get republican campaigns to buy funds online and invest in their importance.
Many candidates have long assumed that “95 percent of the money I would raise would be from large donors, political action committees. The online fundraiser was just to check the box, ”said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (Florida), who lost his seat in 2018 after his Democratic opponent outraged him. “For a long time, members did not understand the potential of online fundraising.”
Building a low-cost machine requires massive, early investment to suck up email addresses and cell phone numbers from listing ads on Facebook, Google, and other digital platforms. Operators on both sides also emphasized that campaigns need to recruit and elevate digitally focused staff members to senior positions.
That turns into big gains at key moments. Democrat John Hickenlooper’s campaign raised more than $ 325,000 online in 48 hours when he became the Colorado Senate candidate. Theresa Greenfield’s Iowa campaign raised more than $ 200,000 online after a Des Moines Register poll showed she narrowly led the Senate race.
Even tweets can generate a significant amount of money: Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) And Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) have started posting tweets about Senate candidates as a way to increase their profiles and raise money. In total, they raised more than $ 600,000 for 8 Democrats via Twitter, including six figures each for Greenfield of Iowa and Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
“This money is essential,” Schatz said in an interview, noting that national parties always have to choose where to choose their money. He continued: “The ability of the grassroots to make sure that we receive funding in Texas, and South Carolina, and Kansas, and Montana and Georgia 1 and 2, is essential.”
Murphy added that total online acceptance across the Democratic Party, including senators and former presidential candidates with large email lists, has created a “multiplier effect” that fuels the enthusiasm of online donors for defeating Trump and other Republicans in 2020
“The problem is not only that they are behind on the tools to use, but they also face a huge enthusiasm gap,” said Stewart Boss, spokesman for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.
House money
House Republicans, who have been sounding the alarm bells in a fundraising crisis throughout the year, said their candidates have largely stabilized things in the second quarter. Many challengers in high-target seats raised at least $ 500,000 or more, and those who cleaned up competitive primaries have enjoyed windfall donations.
At least two House challengers outperformed the headlines in the second quarter. In Northeast Iowa, State Rep. Ashley Hinson beat Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-Iowa), contributing more than $ 1 million to Finkenauer’s $ 875,000. And in Minnesota, Navy veteran Tyler Kistner raised $ 744,000, narrowly beating Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.). However, both Democrats have healthy cash advantages, especially Craig.
Overall, at least 10 of the 42 members of the Democratic Congress Campaign Committee’s “Frontline” program for endangered incumbents raised more than $ 1 million in the second quarter. (Only four reached that milestone in the first three months of the year.) At the end of June, 34 battlefield members had at least $ 2 million or more in the bank.
Meanwhile, the success of the Democratic fundraiser in open seats and in the Republican Party, particularly in Texas, could put Republicans on the defensive in the fall, despite their goal to win back the majority of the House.
Twelve Democratic challengers have at least $ 1 million in the bank, in some cases dwarfing Republican headline funds. Texas Democrat Wendy Davis, nominated for governor in 2014 by the party, has a whopping $ 2.8 million, more than $ 1 million more than Republican Rep. Chip Roy.
Disturbingly for the GOP, Democrats hope that the flashy numbers released earlier this year may end up looking small alongside what they raised online in the next four months.
In 2018, Beto O’Rourke raised $ 10 million in the second quarter, and then $ 38 million in the next three months. Several Democrats this year topped O’Rourke’s number in the second quarter of 2018.
Shelby Cole, a strategist who was the digital director of the Kamala Harris presidential campaign and oversaw O’Rourke’s fundraising in 2018, said campaigns that “prepared for success preemptively” early in the election cycle will see massive profits.
“They just did the boring job of building a good program over time,” Cole said. “And then you see explosive growth take off.”
