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When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, there was a nagging question for Democrats as they celebrated: Would the donors stick around? The theory was that as terrible a president as Trump was, his racism, incompetence and disregard for the law made him a potent enemy to fundraise against. With Trump exiting the political stage (or at least the White House), there was a nascent worry that Democratic donors would go “back to brunch,” so to speak.
Well, those worries were officially unfounded. A year into the Joe Biden presidency, there’s as much energy on the Democratic side as ever, at least judging by the money.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) outraised its Republican counterpart in 2021. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) pulled in $157 million, the most ever for a non-presidential year. The GOP’s big super PACs raised $25 million more than the Democrats’ in the latter half of the year, but we don’t need to worry too much, especially since George Soros, Democrats’ most reliable billionaire funder, put in $125 million to his own PAC, and some of that will surely end up in the pockets of the major PACs. In Virginia’s state legislative elections, which were some of the most important races in 2021, Democrats more than doubled Republican fundraising totals.
ActBlue, the digital platform that powers much of the Democratic ecosystem, reported last week that in 2021, 4.5 million donors used ActBlue to give 35.3 million contributions totaling $1.3 billion, more than twice as much as in 2017, the most recent start of a midterm cycle. Some of this no doubt is due to ActBlue’s own growing domination of the donor space, but it’s a demonstration of how fired up many small donors still are.
This is great news! But let’s drill down a little bit:
More money doesn’t always translate to wins
OpenSecrets tracks how often the candidate in a federal election who raised the most money won. In 2020, about 88 percent of top-spending House candidates and 71 percent of top-spending Senate candidates were victorious, which is actually a down a little from historical averages. It looks like there’s a strong relationship between raising money and winning, which could be because having a bigger war chest confers advantages on candidates. But it also could be because generally, a campaign that is beating its rival in fundraising also has more support generally, is better run, etc. The fact that Democrats lost several high-profile 2020 races where they spent more money—and the fact that they lost all statewide races and the House of Delegates in Virginia a year later—shows that money isn’t everything.
We could see an increasing divergence between fundraising and electoral victories in the 2022 midterms. Democratic donors may be fired up, but their money likely won’t be able to overcome Democrats’ disadvantages in the coming elections, including Biden’s low approval ratings and the historical trend of the party in power losing seats in the midterms.
Donors are getting a bit smarter
Given the massive amount of money that pours into federal races, particularly in the Senate, the savvy thing for donors to do is look for lesser-known races where their money could make an impact. As I’ve written previously, this includes secretary of state contests and state legislative races, where the candidates may not be boldfaced names, but the elections have real material consequences.
The good news on this front is that donors are paying attention to these races. Soros’s PAC has distributed $5 million so far, and though the majority of that went to the House Majority and Senate Majority PACs, $500,000 went to the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, which helps Democrats win at that level. That’s a good investment; you can argue Soros should actually be pouring a lot more into state-level contests, and not giving to huge PACs that mainly exist to launch negative ad blitzes in highly contested, hugely expensive races.
According to ActBlue, 53% of its first-time donors in 2021 gave to either a non-federal campaign or a nonprofit — in other words, not the big-name House and Senate candidates that dominate the news. This may be partly because the progressive movement effectively communicated to these donors that elections in Virginia (and New Jersey) were really important. It may become a little bit more difficult to keep donors interested in these smaller races this year, as there’s going to be a lot of focus in the media on Senate races in Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, along with dozens of House races. But hopefully, we all recognize that state elections matter and are a great value proposition for donors.
Remember campaign finance reform? Me neither
Democrats’ success fundraising at all levels, from small donors to mysterious dark-money mega-donors, may have muted talk of getting money out of politics. The John Lewis Act contained some campaign finance reform elements, including a small-donor matching program and stricter rules on PACs coordinating with campaigns, but these components were hardly the focus of the party’s messaging or the media’s coverage around the bill. Other money-in-politics reform measures are floating around Congress, but they seem unlikely to pass and mostly amount to minor tweaks to the existing system.
Several years ago, when progressives were worried that major corporations and wealthy conservative donors would use loose rules around campaign donations and super PACs to steamroll Democrats, campaign finance reform seemed like a necessary way to prevent Republican domination of all levels of government. But that hasn’t happened, and with Democrats raising money hand over fist, reform no longer seems like a priority. There are still plenty of people advocating for campaign finance reform (and the United States still spends an absurd amount of money on elections), but there’s little path to change.