Republicans are fretting not only about next week’s midterms but also about the future of GOP fundraising, as small donors tune them out, which party strategists blame on years of panicky pleas for cash.
Adding to their woes, according to Politico, is a heavy reliance on Donald Trump and on big donors funding super PACs, a cash edge Politico Playbook warned may come with an expiration date.
Republicans have held a money advantage all year because a few deep-pocketed donors have bankrolled super PACs, with Elon Musk chipping in nearly $500 million on his own. But candidates’ own campaigns have brought in comparatively little because, aside from Trump, Republicans still haven’t figured out online fundraising, Politico reported.
The latest campaign finance filings lay bare the scale of the problem. About 1.5 million federal donors have given through WinRed, the GOP’s main online fundraising platform, so far this cycle, down from 2.2 million at the same point in 2022. Over the same period, donors on the Democrats’ ActBlue have grown by about a third, from 4.9 million to roughly 6.6 million.
The gap is glaring, as Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico alone has had about as many ActBlue donors this cycle as all Republican candidates and committees combined had on WinRed, Politico reported.
GOP digital strategists, some of whom have warned about this for years, blame donor burnout from relentless appeals to the same supporters.
“We beat the absolute hell out of low-dollar donors with texts and emails without expanding our [donor lists], and now no one pays attention,” lamented Wesley Donehue, a South Carolina-based GOP digital strategist.
The shortfall hits House and Senate candidates hardest, because contribution limits force them to draw from a much wider donor pool than super PACs need. And since super PACs pay more per ad than candidates on broadcast TV, Democrats’ edge in candidate fundraising has helped them air nearly as many ads as Republicans despite trailing in overall cash.
GOP online fundraising also still revolves around Trump, according to the report. Politico found that 324,000 WinRed donors this cycle, a bit over 22%, have given only to Trump’s groups on the platform. Another 39% have given to Trump and at least one other Republican.
That means roughly three in five WinRed donors have given to Trump, even though he is not on the ballot and cannot run for president again. That leaves non-Trump donors a distinct minority even as the party starts searching for its next standard bearer for 2028.
“Candidates are not investing the time and resources in programs that grow the donor lists and attract their supporters into the ecosystem. Instead, they just barrage previous donors with ongoing requests for donation,” Eric Wilson, a longtime Republican digital strategist and executive director of the Center for Campaign Innovation, told Politico. “Credit to the Trump team — they brought new people into the ecosystem, and those people continue to give to them.”
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