Online donations from grassroots Republicans sagged in the second quarter as skyrocketing inflation and aggressive digital fundraising by former President Donald Trump crowded out money for GOP candidates and organizations.
Conservative online fundraising platform WinRed processed less money in contributions in April, May, and June ($155.8 million) than in the previous quarter ($169.8 million.) The pinch was felt across the board — Republican candidates and groups both suffered. Party strategists who monitor digital giving say the historic rise in the cost of groceries and sticker shock at the gas pump, plus the campaign cash vacuumed up by Trump’s political action committee, Save America, were the primary culprits.
“As the economy eats away at purchasing power, something has to go by the wayside,” said Zac Moffatt, CEO of Targeted Victory, a Republican consulting firm that specializes in digital fundraising and strategy. Targeted Victory maintains a house file of online donors. The firm discovered through periodic polling that these grassroots Republicans have reduced discretionary budgets for political giving in response to inflation that accelerated to 9.1% in June.
“We do these massive 3,000-person surveys to our donor file,” Moffatt explained. “The verbatim [responses have been:] It’s gas or this donation; it’s vacation with our children or this donation.” Republican insiders interviewed for this story were more guarded when discussing the Trump factor in the second-quarter fundraising downturn experienced by so many GOP candidates and groups, fearing reprisals by the former president. Granted anonymity, they unloaded.
Republicans are critical of Trump’s fundraising tactics and the money he has taken off the table for Republican candidates and groups to raise and spend. Save America, Trump’s PAC, issues dozens of email appeals daily and raked in $103.7 million this cycle. If the former president were sharing the wealth, perhaps Republicans would be less resentful. But Trump appears to be hoarding cash, $103.1 million through June 30, for a 2024 presidential bid.
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That is not sitting well with Republicans focused on 2022 with opportunities to reclaim control of the House and Senate at hand. They expect to compete with GOP White House hopefuls in presidential election cycles, not in years when midterm elections are the main event. Democrats, and their party’s congressional campaign committees, are certainly not experiencing similar impediments to raising money online. Indeed, even with a developing red electoral wave, Democrats are handily out-raising Republicans.
“Trump has never had the Republican Party’s best interests at heart,” a frustrated Republican strategist said. “He has his own interests — and that’s it.” (Trump’s online grassroots fundraising also dipped in the second quarter, totaling less than in January, February, and March.)
Meanwhile, Republican digital fundraising could be staring down the barrel of a new hurdle: Trump announcing a 2024 presidential bid before the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
Trump is the Republican Party’s best digital pitchman. Candidates, and the GOP’s House and Senate campaign arms, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, utilize the 45th president’s image and likeness to raise money, as he remains the party’s most appealing figure to grassroots conservatives. But if Trump becomes a declared candidate, legal obstacles barring the NRCC and NRSC from featuring him so prominently in email fundraising appeals might arise.
A Republican election law expert said as “an incumbent, it was easier to craft messages” that essentially “advocated for” and promoted Trump, as was the case in the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential contest. The NRCC and NRSC can still “mention his name” in digital fundraising missives if Trump becomes a 2024 candidate, the GOP election law expert added, “but it’s a lot trickier.”
Individually, some Republicans, and some GOP groups, enjoyed second-quarter fundraising hauls worth bragging about.
But broadly, the drop in digital fundraising that plagued Republicans during this crucial period led to Democrats entering July with more resources to spend on the fall campaign. For example, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reported a war chest of $121.5 million. The NRCC? $108.9 million. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee reported a war chest of $53.5 million. The NRSC? $28.5 million.
This disparity has filtered down to the candidates in some key congressional races, worrying some Republicans that the party will fail to maximize its potential for House and Senate gains this November.
Republicans emphasize that the party is continuing to grow its base of online grassroots donors in the aggregate. WinRed processed $325.6 million in contributions to Republican candidates and groups during the first six months of this year, a 28% jump over the same period in 2021 despite the fall-off in donations made through the platform from the first quarter to the second quarter.
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Republican digital strategists say Democrats are awash in online money despite an impending midterm elections disaster because they were cultivating grassroots for several years before the GOP did so — and because they have a larger pool of donors to pull from, to the tune of several million more. And amid the carping that inflation and Trump are hurting digital fundraising, some Republicans say the party began to recover from this problem in mid-July.
“This is no longer a problem,” a GOP strategist advising 2022 congressional candidates said.
