Democrats have raised more than three times more money in small-dollar donations than Republicans, and used that to contest more seats https://t.co/WGaZWaRDWH
— Terri Rupar (@terri_rupar) November 4, 2018
… “What Democrats’ money allowed them to do is expand the battlefield beyond the handful of most vulnerable Republican seats,” said David Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Report, a political handicapping website.
As of October, Democratic candidates had outraised their Republican opponents in 53 of the 73 most competitive congressional races, including 20 districts that Trump won by double digits in 2016, according to a Washington Post analysis. Twenty-two contests became competitive after Democrats began heavily fundraising.…
Joyce Abrams, 80, has donated this election through ActBlue, an online fundraising platform. Often, she said, it was in response to a solicitation from a Democratic candidate trying to cross a fundraising threshold, giving as little as $5 just to show her support.
“In some cases, I’m really doing token giving. . . . Sometimes, it’s very important that there are numbers of people donating, as much as the amount,” said Abrams, a registered Democrat in southern Oregon…
The ‘green wave’ was less an act of nature than the result of careful planning on the part of Democrats.
Even before the primary season, Democratic strategists worked to prepare candidates for moments of national attention, and on how to capitalize on them.
To assist in the effort, an “expansion” team of five Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee strategists tasked with widening the midterm map for the party crisscrossed the country, helping the campaigns quickly respond when a fundraising opportunity arose…
ActBlue and other groups have allowed donors to give on impulse — when they are angry with the president, frustrated by Congress or hopeful about a candidate’s ad message.
“They read a Trump tweet, they see a video and they get really upset. They’re sitting there, and have 15 minutes before their next meeting. How does their intention turn into productive action in that short period of time?” said Ethan Todras-Whitehill, executive director and co-founder of Swing Left, which has raised $10 million for battleground House districts this cycle…
“Every Democratic candidate in the country has been looking for a moment this year . . . to tap into that national small-dollar fundraising army that exists for Democrats,” said Tyler Jones, a general consultant for Cunningham’s campaign. “When we started to see an influx of fundraising, it made us all look at each other and say, ‘We can do this.’ ”
Jerzy Russian
Here’s hoping it all pays off in the end. I sent my ballot off last week. I am hoping that that fuckhead Ducan Hunter goes down tomorrow (he is in the next district over so I could not vote against him).
Kraux Pas
I’m excited to vote my straight D ticket tomorrow and bringing my boyfriend to do the same for the first time since 2012.
Still, I think people are satisfied enough with the status quo in MA that I expect our lame R governor and my R rep who does little more than showboat about EBT cards will both win reelection. But we gotta try.
Thoughtful David
For me, this year, the big moment was the Justice Rapey vote. To all 33 of the senators running, I gave at least $5 to the candidate if they voted no, and to their opponents if they voted yes. I gave more to some (Heitcamp, for example).
I did a lot of donations for my state and local races, too, but those were my out of state donations.
SFAW
@Kraux Pas:
Interesting. Is your “R rep” in MA-13? (Not to be confused with MS-13)
Tom Levenson
I am so glad this happened, but I finally hit the wall yesterday. My wife and I had agreed that only one of us should handle the great bulk of donating this year, so we don’t get into the madness of having us each spray out a random set of contributions as one outrage or another triggers us — and it was her turn (we talked about it). We also set up small monthly donations to some of the national party committees, just so we could ignore all the spot solicitations. But even my much contained donating — and, I’m guessing, the occasional reax to the Balloon Juice group thermometers, plus a donating history that goes back a ways — I’ve been getting literally over a hundred email asks a day, more on “deadline” dates. Between the sheer volume and the whipsawing subject lines (“We’re So Happy About This Beto Poll” “Our Hearts Are Broken, Beto’s Collapsing”…etc.) I couldn’t take it anymore. My wife and I went over closing donations and I’ve been unsubscribing from everyone (just about…I’m weak) from yesterday evening. Sometimes, I guess, one has to make a mental health call.
Still, we’ve given as much as we can, last time yesterday, and my wife’s out canvassing for D’s while I get ready to go to a curriculum committee meeting. She’s got much the better of the deal. We’ll be at the Warren/Mass Dems party tomorrow, if any fellow jackals are planning to attend. Onwards, mes amis!
Tom Levenson
@Kraux Pas: Yup re Baker, a true show pony if ever there was one. I think there will be more straight D ticket voting this time (my son, in his first ever vote, did just that, with pride). But I doubt it will be enough to overcome the smilin’ Charlie BS.
Buck
Here in Maryland, the Republicans are using our Governor’s personal popularity in a big way. You would think there are two parties — the Democratic Party, and the “Endorsed by Hogan” party. I’ve also gotten about three times as much Republican candidate literature as Democratic. All the local Republican candidates have been standing near busy intersections during rush hour and waving at cars, which is weird. This weekend I got a flier in the mail that took a picture of a Democratic council candidate and put it next to a shot of shirtless brown tattooed gang members, with the caption “Will make the county a sanctuary county.” You had to look really hard to find the Maryland Republican Party information on the thing.
I don’t expect the status quo to change too much in the state, but we’ll see. In suburban Maryland, Trump is nowhere to found.
Barbara
@Tom Levenson: I have given through ActBlue and BJ appeals, and am now on dozens of email lists. Fortunately, nearly all of them get funneled into my office spam filter list, so I look at them all at once and delete.
Kraux Pas
@SFAW:
3rd Bristol
joel hanes
As usual, the fucking pundits miss the lede.
A huge breadth of first-time Dem candidates have money and a real chance of winning because individual Dem voters bypassed the DLCC and the DNC and the DNSC and OFA etc. and donated directly to individual candidates via ActBlue. So candidates that were invisible to the national party got some early funds, and mirabile dictu, with money they were able to field a credible campaign, which attracted press attention and more funds.
debit
@Tom Levenson: I usually take some time with my morning coffee and just unsub from everything new. I’ve said before, I give what I can when I can and the hysterical pleas do nothing but raise my stress level. I got an actual snail mail thank you from some out of state Act Blue candidate, but I would rather they spend that money elsewhere. Like in their own state.
Also, I keep getting text messages reminding me to vote for so and so. As a courtesy, I text back and let them know I already voted and yes, I marked my ballot for those candidates. Then they try to engage me in conversation, like “what do you find most important about (issue)?” Then I block their number. Just, dude, stop blowing up my phone. You got your vote, now go away.
One way or another it’ll be over soon.
Gin & Tonic
@Tom Levenson: You really need a throw-away e-mail account.
Elizabelle
@joel hanes: Incidentally, ActBlue got smeared by Freedom Caucuser Dave Brat, who tried to make it sound George Soros-owned. Politifact Virginia called him out for it.
PolitiFact Virginia: Dave Brat Rates “Pants On Fire” On Spanberger/Soros Connection
tokyokie
I filled out lots of postcards for Spanberger without Soros paying me a dime. But I wish it were as easy to get on the Soros lefty campaign payroll as it is to make the wingnut welfare circuit.
Yarrow
@debit: I got what I think is a scam text yesterday. I voted early and the calls and texts to get me to vote stopped until the one I got yesterday. It said public records show I voted in 2016 but not in 2014 and was I going to vote this year to “improve your voting record.” I have already voted this year and I did vote in 2014. It also included a link, which I’m guessing is a scam or malware of some sort. It came from a five digit text number, not a phone number. Not sure if I should report it somehow.
Manyakitty
@Yarrow: Was it regarding a specific candidate?
schrodingers_cat
@Tom Levenson: I too voted for Jay Gonzales.
Kraux Pas
@schrodingers_cat: I mean I hope Jay can pull it off, but our statewide incumbents seeking reelection this year are polling way out of the margin of error.
Good for Elizabeth Warren tho.
Victor Matheson
@Tom Levenson: So, I will be voting for Gonzalez, but to me Baker has been a perfectly acceptable governor. I often tell people that if the national Republican party were made up of New England Republicans, losing elections wouldn’t be such a disaster. With the exception of LePage, who was elected more through luck and stupidity of 3rd party candidates than through the will of the people, I don’t know anyone here at BJ who wouldn’t trade McConnell, Steve King, Hatch, Grassley, Ryan, etc. for any of the Republicans who have been elected to statewide offices here like Baker, Snow, Jeffords, William Weld, Phil Scott, Snow, Lincoln Chaffee, and even Collins or the Massachusetts version of Mitt Romney (before they replaced his beta-OS with the full Republican update).
Again, it’s not that most of these candidates would be my first choice given a reasonable Democratic choice, but as a group they have all been fairly competent and moderate. And if the Democrats somehow nominated a Judge Moore for Senate or Governor, although nominating sex offenders seems to be more of Republican thing recently, I could easily see myself crossing party lines for a Baker-like Republican for the good of the state/democracy. Even Collins, who certainly deserves most of the expletives hurled at her here, did the right thing on the ACA repeal. Think about how much better a world we would have if Collins were the median Republican senator rather than the first or second most liberal.
debit
@Yarrow: Yeah, not sure where you would report it to. Maybe your cell service provider? Because yes, that sounds like a scam.
J R in WV
We gave almost exclusively through ActBlue. In fact I got a few email solicitations that interested me enough to click through, and the ones that weren’t ActBlue donations I just closed out, I wasn’t going to enter all the needed information yet again.
There are several monthly donations through tomorrow, and some direct donations to the national ACLU, the SPLC, and Planned Parenthood. But mostly all through ActBlue, which costs the receivers of the donation nothing. Their costs are covered by donations directly to ActBlue, which we donate a fixed amount to every month.
If it WAS a George Soros founded institution, I would still contribute, why should the wealthy Hungarian do all the heavy lifting? We need to save ourselves, don’t we?
Betty Cracker
@debit: Same! And thank dog it’s almost over. I’m sick of my phone, text and email blowing up all the time.
schrodingers_cat
OT Home repair question: Sump pump is bringing in a lot of sand which is clogging it,the pump itself is not sitting on a pedestal. The pump itself seems to be running fine once you manually remove the sand. Could it be a problem with the lining? The house was built about 20 years ago.
CindyH
@Victor Matheson: I’ll never get over collins’ behavior on the kkkavanaugh vote.
Never.
schrodingers_cat
Oh and I had zero wait at the town clerk’s office for voting, it was easy peasy.
Yarrow
@Manyakitty: Nope. Just a general text message. It started with “THANK YOU for voting!” Yes the thank you was in all caps. Not from the Dem or Rep party or any other identifiable group.
Butter Emails!!!
@Kraux Pas:
1. I think Baker would have been beatable even with his popularity had we gotten someone more like Gillum in Florida to run against him. Unfortunately, I don’t think Gonzalez is going to get the job done, even though I’m still voting for him. MA is just too comfortable keeping incumbents around, particularly if they’re reasonably unobjectionable, don’t completely screw things up, provide constituent services and show up for the photo ops and hand shaking.
2. I blame the Massachusetts’ Democratic Party more than Gonzalez for the loss. They should have been engaged in a 4 year long campaign to undermine Baker’s popularity, instead of playing the whole “we’re all just a big bunch of happy Massholes game.” It’s not really a huge issue if he gets elected to another term as governor. The problem is what happens in a couple years when he’s looking for another office to get into and 1) runs against Markey in 2020 or Warren/Warren’s replacement in 2024 instead of going after the Presidency.
Ohio Mom
@Tom Levenson: We do pretty much the same — Ohio Dad writes the checks. Which was probably better for the Democrats running — I gulped a few times, “I said let’s give her money but I didn’t mean quite that much!”
You are right, the amount of email solicitations is ridiculous. I do wonder if it doesn’t reach a point for some people that it doesn’t turn into a complete turn-off. It comes off as a lot of crying wolf.
But only another day and a half…
Butter Emails!!!
@Victor Matheson:
This used to be true, but isn’t so true anymore. There’s still a handful of OK New England Republicans out there, but they’re a vanishing breed and the rest are probably as nutty as the rest of them (or would be if they weren’t trying to position themselves as reasonable New England Republicans). For example, I made the mistake of voting for Healey for governor. Dodged a bullet there thanks to Patrick and have never repeated the mistake.
Brachiator
@joel hanes:
Great point. Thanks for emphasizing this.
The spirit of resistance after the November 2016 election was real, sustained and focused. I did not realize the degree to which ActBlue was an effective alternative source of funding, or that traditional organizations were missing some of the fledgling candidates who emerged. However the midterms go, this is just the beginning.
@Elizabelle:
Mobs vs jobs. Wow. Catchy, with a hint of desperation, and of course total bullshit.
ETA: I early voted here in California, so I am just relaxing and waiting for Nov 6. It was a relative breeze.
Scott
I was one of those people who donated for the first time in my life (I’m 64). Not a huge amount, a couple hundred but I hope it helps. It does annoy somewhat that I get daily texts and emails for more funds but that’s the nature of the game.
Marcopolo
@Gin & Tonic: Seconded. 99% of my candidate email begs money go to the junk email account.
I just did my election night tracker spreadsheet and somehow I managed to give to 69 candidates this year (19 in state/50 outside) across every time zone. Which upon reflection may be a little insane–but in my defense this is an existential election so if not now, when? Also, I may have gone a little over (checks notes…a lot over) budget but at least I will have lots to keep me occupied as the results come in. And I have one guaranteed winner–the guy who won the Dem StL County Prosecuting Attorney primary in August is running unopposed in the general.
joel hanes
@Brachiator:
traditional organizations were missing some of the fledgling candidates who emerged.
It’s important to realize that the DNC and DSCC and DCCC do not exist to pursue a more liberal government, nor even to get more Democrats elected: because of the Iron Law of Institutions, they inevitably act as if their only goal was to re-elect incumbents.
I think Howie Klein is over-amped and shrill, but on this he’s been right for a long long time: the DSCC in particular far too often refuses to fund excellent grassroots candidates in favor of piling another million on late-campaign ads for some mediocre incumbent.
When the Dems decay into a party composed solely of politicians, they and the nation lose.
When the Dems tend the grassroots (50-state strategy gave us Obama), they win.
gvg
I am allergic to calls and texts from people I don’t know and HATE being solicited. I donate less because of junk mail and I didn’t want ANY emails, mail or phone calls urging me to do anything. I watched some of you do calls and postcards and then texting and I know it really does work, but if things were less good versus evil you could have driven me away. I am not typical however. All the same I almost argued that texts to people might really annoy rather than persuade.
I am currently learning to use a new phone with better spam blocking for robo calls and fraudulent numbers. It’s gotten to be a big annoyance, especially when I am working.
I think we will have to keep working on better techniques. Some of the email commercial lists I have tried have options other than unsubscribe where you can specify what kinds of infor you want coupons and sales or a lot more) and how often. Then some of them actually do what you say, and others ignore it (and I then unsubscribe because I can’t stand 3 a day from the same source when I said once a month too). I think we need something like this And it needs to be a group thing (all the party connected) Ideally AI could put together a weekly or monthly newsletter with a bit from all the candidates you ask about with maybe a rotating feature about new people.
Currently i just delete.
I got on some extra call lists because someone put my phone number on my sisters record and she is a much more active giver. I don’t think they are actually removing my number when I tell them they have a wrong number.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
Basement drainage is quite varied by locality, as subsoil conditions vary a lot from place to place. So I’m not going to speculate much about your new sand problem. You certainly need a local basement water problem guy with experience in your local basement conditions.
But it could certainly be a liner issue, new cracks in clay pipe used to line the well. Or it could be that the constant flow of ground water into the sump has washed out a vein into the sump that now allows more sand to be washed into the sump. An experienced guy will be able to tell when he gets into it.
Local architect or geo-engineer types may be willing to recommend someone they know with a good track record. Otherwise looking for someone who advertises that they do sump pump work, then investigating them before getting an appontment, getting references, etc.
It is the kind of thing that can become a real pain in the ass, for sure, best of luck with it. We solved a wet basement problem by putting in a shallow french drain around the side of the house against the steep hillside, diverting rainwater from both the roof and the hillside away to a rustic gutter in the front of the house.
TenguPhule
Trump’s America: Aggrieved and Adoring Voices From Inside the Bubble
Sigh, FTFNYT has a plan and its sticking to it, come hell or high water.
A Ghost To Most
I generally don’t donate to out of state campaigns, but I make exceptions. To this point, I’m batting 1.000.
I sent to Abrams and Gillum. Hopefully, the streak continues.
TenguPhule
@J R in WV: Heya. I didn’t manage to get back to you on the other thread in time. There was a good reason I called that guy an asshole undeserving of becoming a frontpager. His comment history here is more about him having to be dick then to actually carry a conversation here. Which you can see in that very thread if you go back and check. Or scroll back in the archives if you don’t want to believe me. I usually refrain from getting personal with the other commentors here, but that asshole has been flinging shit my way for awhile now.
dm
The only Democratic Party functions I gave to were the DLCC (legislative) and the Democratic Governors’ Association. Otherwise, it was money straight to candidates via Act Blue.
Kay
Ignore the President and his low quality employees- there won’t be any Federal Voting Police out trolling for non-Republican voters.
They’re dopes and they’re just trying to lower turnout- luckily they know nothing about how elections actually work.
As the voter the elected officials in your state serve YOU- they work for you. Don’t accept low quality work. Insist they earn their paychecks.
You’re not a presumptive felon and you shouldn’t be treated as one, no matter how much these corrupt hacks don’t want you to vote. THEY serve YOU, not the other way around.
Marcopolo
@joel hanes: So… While I agree with some of what you are saying there is a lot more to the story than all national D orgs are bad.
This is just hyperbolic bullshit. The DNC under Tom Perez has been lightyears better than the DNC under Wasserman-Schultz. A lot of the wonderful folks we are seeing running for Congress as Ds this cycle were actually recruited by the DNC and DCCC. Have they fucked up, sure. Bottom line, they should never take sides in a competitive primary–even when they have some recruit they want to protect. There are several House races where the establishment choice candidate is worse than other folks who might be running–Donna Shalala I think in FL-27 is particularly awful & might lose a seat a younger hispanic candidate would have coasted in. On the flip side, the DCCC has run the most robust Red to Blue campaign I can recall in history (yes part of that is the result of the energy in this midterm). Quite a few of the House candidates I have contributed to have been because they were on the Red to Blue list. Their highlighting these candidates, many of them first timers, most of them not white men, created publicity & allowed a lot of us small grassroots funders to learn about them.
I am not sure which grassroots Senate candidates the DSCC missed out on this cycle. I am actually curious if you want to throw some names out since I thought I was following the primary stuff pretty closely. That being said all the national committees do make very strategic funding decisions and they do lean conservative (by this I mean risk averse) by nature. I’ve given money to Audrey Denney in CA-1. She’s an incredible candidate in a very very red district. She’s pretty much gotten no support from the national D apparatus. Now she looks like she could potentially flip that seat. But her race has not had the profile (winnability until these past two weeks) for someone whose job security no doubt probably depends on the percentage success of their decisions.
I am glad that the playing field is being leveled so we will see even more fresh faces running for office going forward. Advances in crowd-funding political campaigns are a huge part of that. But I really dislike the all or nothing takes I see so often here. The world is a much more nuanced place than that.
Now off to knock one last set of doors or more likely put out a bunch of GOtV door hangers.
PS I should note as a caveat that I don’t give to national D orgs. But then I spend a lot more time figuring out election shit (and what individual candidates I want to help than most folks ever will or have time to in the first place) and I do give to my state D party.
tobie
I gave way more than I could afford this year to many individual candidates and to my state Dem Party, the DNC and the DCCC. I don’t regret any of those last contributions. Thanks to them, we had much better digital infrastructure at the state level and even physical infrastructure with Democratic headquarters, phones, and computers in every county. We also have paid college students working for the party at every office. And, at a certain point, I realized I couldn’t follow every race in the country. I’m glad the various Dem organizations have funds that can be deployed at the last minute to help out in races that have turned surprisingly close. I don’t get the pervasive hate for the party. No, it’s not perfect by a long shot and it’s still trying to figure out how to appeal to younger voters, Latinx voters, etc and to train new people to run for every friggin’ office from city council member onward as a Dem. But it’s precisely for these functions that you need a party. It does different things than a campaign does.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Hell, they are not swayed by facts, period.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
There will undoubtedly be state and non-official Trump supporters who will try though. Count on it. Because Trump has given them the green light.
Mike J
My fear is that if we don’t win people will believe it’s pointless to donate, or even vote, in the future.
We’ve already scored victories in making Republicans defend seats they never dreamed would be threatened. We’ve raised the profile of local Democrats around the country, and made sure our issues were put in front of the voters. We will not win every seat tomorrow. We will lose some seats in which people have invested a great deal, emotionally and financially. If we move a R+15 seat to a R+5 seat, that doesn’t mean we should lose heart. It means that next time we only need to swing 5% more.
Victor Matheson
@CindyH: Agreed. But in some ways it is a little unfair to paint Collins as the anti-Christ when 48 other Republicans cast exactly the same vote as she did. Basically we really hate her because she sometimes does the right thing and potentially could have here as well so it really felt like a stab in the back. But objectively, isn’t that better than the 48 other stabs in the chest from Republican senators who never do the right thing.
Just a weird quirk of human nature. And admittedly it gets tiring to hear about Collins as the great moderate when she votes in lock step with Republican leadership 90% of the time.
TenguPhule
@Mike J:
My fear is that people start giving up if we win this one and nothing changes for the better. This election is simply about stopping the Nazis. Anyone who thinks that we’re getting anything more then that before 2021 is going to be bitterly disappointed.
Shana
@joel hanes: While most of us here know the origin of the name, EMILY’s List is actually an acronym – Early Money Is Like Yeast. It also gives almost exclusively to women.
JR
@TenguPhule: replace Jim Jones with Trump and you can get the same effect
lamh36
Woke up this morning, one year older and with a few more grey hairs on my head than I had last year…but mostly still black! A few more pains than this time last year, but still alive and relatively health. I call that a lot of winning for a 42nd birthday…wouldn’t you agree
https://media.giphy.com/media/2umRRFszhDFqo/giphy-downsized-large.gif
tobie
@lamh36: Happy birthday! I hope America gives you a HUGE birthday present tomorrow. Many happy returns!
pat
@Tom Levenson:
I have had to block the emails that come in ALL CAPS… Beto has LOST, that sort of thing. Why does anyone think this over-the-top fear-mongering is going to not turn people off. The headlines in the emails (OMG …) have only to do with the fundraising! Send us more money and we have a 600 % match!!!!
I ALREADY SENT YOU LOTS OF MONEY.
Sheesh.
CindyH
@Victor Matheson: no, I’m talking about her silver lining comment that now more victims would report it to the police
That was unspeakably horrible and her actions ensured that more wont report it
She did the most damage with that imo
WaterGirl
@Victor Matheson: She is worse than the others because she pretends not to be a partisan hack and to be pro-choice and to be pro-woman, but she’s not. She’s profoundly dishonest and is all about power, just like the other Republican sociopaths.
SFAW
@Kraux Pas:
Oh, you meant state rep. And here I was, thinking you were talking about Congress.
SFAW
I don’t recall which jackals live in Wisconsin (outside of Omnes, that is), but I was wondering about the race in WI-01. Randy Bryce made a big splash early on, but it looks like he’s 4 points down. Any chance we get ZEGS’s soon-to-be-former seat?
Aussie Sheila
If I don’t get another chance before your Tuesday (it’s Tuesday here in the great south land), all the best for tomorrow. The fingers and toes of 70% plus of Australians who are horrified by tRump are well and truly crossed for you all.
It has been both sad and exhilarating reading and following the last two years.
For what it is worth, I feel much more confident for everybody today than I did in 2016.
Looking forward to hearing reactionary lamentations tomorrow.
All the best to every Dem candidate and may the wind be under their wings.
Chetan Murthy
@joel hanes:
This year, I gave to Congressional candidates thru SwingLeft’s list (they had a way to do it with a check, so avoid 3% fee). So: 84 swing district races. But next time [assuming there is one] I wonder if I should instead donate to all the districts that are -worse-off- than the ones on SwingLeft’s list Or maybe look for a list of many, many more local races.
For -exactly- the reasons you adduce.