12 Things I Learned About Donors and Democratic Politics in 2022

Blog

Jan 11

Over the last year, Blue Tent raised over $600,000 to achieve Democratic victories in federal and state elections. Most of this money went to support candidates running in down-ballot races, while about a third went to progressive organizations working to mobilize and persuade voters in key battleground states. I’ve learned a lot about political fundraising along the way, including from a survey of donors that Blue Tent conducted after the election in collaboration with Donor Organizer Hub and seven co-sponsoring groups. Here are my twelve takeaways:

1. Democratic donors are as fired up as ever

After Trump left office, one might have predicted a steep falloff of giving on the left. That didn’t happen. Donors actually gave twice as much through ActBlue in 2021 as they did in 2017 — which kind of floored me. And, per OpenSecrets, Democratic donors gave just as much for House races in 2022 as in 2018 and nearly twice as much for Senate races. Pulling back the lens further, nearly three times as many Democrats made political contributions in 2022 as in 2014. Clearly, left-of-center donors are still terrified by what’s happening in this country. I certainly am.

2. Still, only a sliver of Democrats are donors

All that said, only the tiniest sliver of Americans make political contributions to either party — just under a half percentage point in the 2022 cycle and 1.5% in 2020. I would have thought that share would be higher given recent trends.

3. A lot of money is sitting on the sidelines

I know plenty of people who are just as scared as I am by today’s GOP, but either don’t make political contributions at all or give far less than they could. We need to change that. Even small increases in the share of Democrats giving could unlock billions of dollars in new funding. While the electoral college and the Senate give the GOP a structural political advantage, Blue America enjoys a clear financial edge in the competition for power. The counties that Biden won in 2020 account for 71% of U.S. gross domestic product.

4. Conventional fundraising channels still dominate

Despite all the new progressive electoral groups that have popped up since 2016, our survey found that candidates and Democratic party committees remain the dominant pathways for political giving on the left. I was surprised by that — and disheartened, since campaigns routinely mislead donors and most party committees have spotty records of success.

5. Shady practices are pervasive

While I’ve long known about the problems that surround political fundraising, I’ve learned more about just how bad things are — and how sick and tired donors are of being harassed and deceived. Even politicians who should know better, like AOC, routinely put out misleading appeals. Three-quarters of our survey respondents said they wanted fewer email and text solicitations, tracking with the results of a recent poll by Civic Shout and Kos Media. A large majority also said they wanted more analysis and less panic in these messages.

6. Newer funding intermediaries remain on the fringe

I don’t have the data yet, but I bet that all the newer funding groups combined (e.g, Movement Voter Project, Mind the Gap, and Way to Win) raised less than $400 million this cycle – or maybe 5% of all money given for Democrats. Our survey confirmed that most donors don’t connect to intermediaries or follow their guidance. I would have thought these groups would be getting more traction by now.

7. Donors don’t know how little they don’t know

I’m surprised that donors aren’t more self-aware of how limited their information is. While survey respondents said they get most of their guidance on where to give directly from candidates and from “reading the news” — neither of which are high-quality sources — 79% said they “often” or “always” had enough reliable information to guide their giving and 65% said they had confidence their money is used effectively.

8. Lots of money is still getting wasted

After the 2020 election, where huge sums were poorly targeted, I would have thought we’d see donors give more cautiously. And they have, to some extent. Still, Marcus Flowers raised $15 million for a race against Majorie Taylor Greene that he (predictably) lost by nearly 40 points, while the $76 million donated to Beto O’Rourke’s campaign reflected more wishful thinking than rigorous analysis. (He lost by 11 points.) Ditto for the $56 million given for Tim Ryan's Senate bid. Donors made these bad choices in a cycle in which a number of underfunded candidates lost tight federal and state races, most notably Mandela Barnes.

9. Narratives have a big and negative impact on where dollars go

People gave to O’Rourke because they bought into a storyline about a political star who could flip Texas. Around $90 million flowed to Stacey Abrams’s campaign for a similar reason — never mind Kemp’s strong approval ratings going into the race, suggesting she had a very steep hill to climb. On the flip side, many Democratic donors wrote off the House, starving winnable races of resources. If the $220 million that went to O’Rourke, Ryan, and Abrams was spent instead on close House races and to boost Barnes, we might still have total control of Congress and the extra votes to eliminate the filibuster.

10. Donors prefer giving to candidates no matter what you tell them

Blue Tent advises donors to prioritize organizing groups over candidates — arguing that such giving helps both win elections and build power over the long term. That sounds simple enough, so I’ve been surprised that it’s such a hard sell. Our readers responded far more enthusiastically to candidate fundraising appeals than to ones focused on GOTV work. And our survey confirmed that only a very small share of donors give mainly to organizations.

11. Down-ballot races are finally on the radar — but still not a priority

One message that does seem to be getting through is that donors should give more attention to state-level races. Donors gave record sums this year to secretary of state and attorney general races, as well as state legislative races. I was surprised by all this giving. At the same time, our survey found that donors still strongly prefer giving for federal races.

12. Donors are getting smarter about early giving

Another message getting more traction with donors than I would have expected is the importance of giving early. That’s seen in both our survey findings and in OpenSecrets data. This is good.

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These takeaways amount to a good news, bad news story. Clearly, we still have a lot of work to do to get donors to seek out better advice, especially from funding intermediaries, and to change how they give. In the meantime, it’s urgently important to reform the behavior of still-dominant actors in Democratic fundraising.