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Republicans Confront Unexpected Online Money Slowdown [1]

['Shane Goldmacher']

Date: 2022-07-26

Some Republicans blamed inflation. Some blamed tech platforms. Others accused certain campaigns and committees — in particular the highly aggressive Trump operation — of simply overfishing and polluting a limited donor pool for everyone.

Mr. Trump’s PAC often sends out more than a dozen daily fund-raising emails and relentlessly searches for new donors via text messages and by renting conservative email lists. At times, the operation has leaned on deceptive and manipulative tactics. As one Republican said in Mr. Wilson’s survey, “Republicans are struggling to grow online fund-raising revenue because the big dogs are eating all of the food in the bowl.”

Two strategists involved in other down-ticket Republican races, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid angering the Trump team, said that the former president’s renting of donor lists has at times boxed out other 2022 candidates or forced them into less favorable terms when prospecting for new contributors.

Some Republicans have polled their donors to ask about why they were not giving and, according to people familiar with the results, inflation was the top answer. At a closed-door donor retreat last month, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, also pinned the blame on inflation for the slowdown in small donations.

Still, inflation’s role is being hotly debated in digital circles because it has not seemingly affected Democratic donations, which jumped particularly in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade.

“They’ve got a lot of motivating factors,” Mr. Wilson said of Democrats.

Some Republican strategists said that their small-donor base is especially susceptible to price increases because their small donors are increasingly working class or rely on fixed incomes. A New York Times analysis of 2020 campaign contributions nationally showed that compared with Democrats, Republicans raised a far greater share of their money in ZIP codes where the median household income was less than $100,000, part of the evolving realignment between the two parties.

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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/online-fundraising-republicans-democrats.html

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