Republicans may hate Bernie Sanders’s socialist policies, but they love one thing about the Vermont senator: his fundraising prowess.
The average donation to Sanders’s Democratic presidential bid was $18 in the last quarter of 2019. That makes him far less reliant on donors who can afford to write out a $2,800 check without blinking, the maximum allowable for a primary campaign. And small-dollar donors who give the equivalent of a medium-priced restaurant dinner can do so repeatedly without bumping up on the maximum amount.
“We’ve made investments to attract more small-dollar donors and compete with the Democrats in this realm, and it’s paid off big time,” said Michael McAdams, the national press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
“We’ve seen a 340% increase in giving from 2017 to 2019,” McAdams said.
In an “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” approach, Republican operatives are following this small-dollar tactic, honed by Sanders and the Democratic fundraising site ActBlue, a remarkably effective online fundraising tool. And, after some fits and starts, an online fundraising platform called WinRed is starting to bring in the bucks in smallish increments.
WinRed, a corporation and online fundraising technology used by conservative politicians and groups to allow donors across the country to make donations online, has been a “game changer for the GOP,” McAdams said, because it has made it easier for more local, low-profile candidates to tap into grassroots donor networks.
It relies on urgent political messaging to prospective donors, warning about House Democrats’ impeachment efforts and the perils of socialism, as espoused by Sanders, who won the popular vote in three of the first four nominating contests. The combination of platform and message is an update on long-standing direct mail and digital marketing techniques that have previously been aimed more at high-dollar donors.
Republicans plan to use Sanders and socialism as a foil and a boogeyman in fundraising.
“We’re going to drive the socialism issue day in and day out. Folks understand there’s a lot on the line. It’s a choice election between socialism and freedom, and people will be reminded of that,” said McAdams.
Since President Trump’s election, the Republican National Committee has added over 2.5 million donors, including over 1 million new small donors just during the impeachment period. Trump’s average donation on WinRed in the last six months of 2019 was $40, in the range of the average Sanders often boasts about. According to the latest fundraising data, the GOP is getting better at fundraising from small donors, too, with the aim of becoming less reliant on big, wealthy donors.
For most of the past decade, the Republican Party’s big fundraising committees — the National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the Republican National Committee — have been outraised handily by their Democratic counterparts. Thus far in the 2020 election cycle, though, Republicans have the upper hand in fundraising.
According to the latest fundraising data for this election cycle compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, all the major Republican Party committees, except the NRCC in the House, are beating their Democratic counterparts.
“We continue to break fundraising records, bring in swaths of new donors every month, and have seen a significant increase in donations from large- and small-dollar donors alike,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Mandi Merritt.
The RNC has raised more than double the amount the Democratic National Committee has: over $268 million, compared to the DNC’s $103 million. Furthermore, the NRCC outraised its Democratic rival, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in the month of January for the first time in two years.
On the Senate side, for the first time in years, the NRSC is going toe-to-toe with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
These new donors have come from a coordinated decision to identify and attract small-dollar donors, the GOP digital strategist said, a decision made in order to better compete with Democrats.
McAdams said that the NRCC, for example, has focused on acquiring new leads through email, text, and digital platforms such as Facebook, Google, Verizon Media, and ad platform LockerDome, to find new donors.
WinRed founder Gerrit Lansing, who was the chief digital officer at the RNC from 2015 and 2017 and has worked in the Trump White House, said he was “fortunate” to get beaten by ActBlue in the past decade. Nearly every Democrat running for Congress in the past few years has used the digital online fundraising tools provided by ActBlue, a nonprofit organization.
“I saw this really early on, before anyone else, that we were getting destroyed by online money. After 2018, there was a consensus to do something to challenge ActBlue,” said Lansing.
Lansing said that the White House, Republicans in Congress, and the Republican Party all came together over the past couple years to rally around one platform, WinRed. He said they are now “seeing the early signs of success,” by replicating ActBlue’s donation technology and trying to improve on it.
Lansing admitted, though, that ActBlue has a 15-year head start over WinRed. ActBlue raised $1.05 billion in 2019 with an average donation of $30.50, according to ActBlue’s year-end figures, compared to $101 million and average donations of $44.08 raised by WinRed in the first six months since its launch.
Although Democrats on ActBlue currently raise much more money on the platform than Republicans on WinRed, overall, the Republican Party has raised more money this cycle than the Democratic Party, highlighting that the GOP has used other platforms and means besides WinRed to fundraise in the past year.
“WinRed will ultimately be successful if we win elections,” said Lansing.
