Fundraising Notes

by Chris Bowers, Fri Jul 22, 2005 at 08:20:35 AM EDT

Last week, Paul Hackett, who will be on the Al Franken show today, had $62,025 in the bank as of last week. Since Blogopshere day, he has raised more than $100,000 online from a wave of small donors. According to Tim Tagaris, who is conducting an open source investigation into Jean Schmidt's fundraising, this means he has entirely eliminated Schmidt's cash on hand advantage. Way to go netroots!

At the national committee level, while we still lag behind Republicans, our fundraising ability has clearly improved:

Democrats raised $86.3 million in the first half of this year, beating their total for the same period in 2003 by more than 50 percent. Republican fundraising increased slightly over the same nonelection-year periods.

Overall, the GOP still held a sizable fundraising edge, taking in $142.7 million from January to June of this year, according to Federal Election Commission figures released Thursday.

That total was 2 percent more than the party raised in the first half of 2003.

The financial reports covered the Republican and Democratic National Committees, plus party groups that raise money for House and Senate candidates, and state and local fundraising arms.

Republicans spent $98.1 million in the first half of the year, compared with $60.2 million for Democrats.

By midyear, Republicans had $72.5 million cash on hand and $800,000 in debts. Democrats reported $32.7 million cash on hand and $4.6 million in debts.

The RNC collected a record amount for a nonelection year, taking in $62 million, for a nearly 12 percent increase from the mid-2003 total. The DNC collected half that - $31.3 million - for a 66 percent increase from two years earlier.

Democrats increased 50%, while Republicans only increased 2%. I like that trend. I also like that, once again, most of this money, at least the DNC money (I don't know about the DCCC and DSCC) is coming in the form of small donations.

Tags: Money (all tags)

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17 Comments

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Don't forget DFA

also sent out an email to it's entire list. Which should now be over one million.

by Parker 2005-07-22 08:24AM | 0 recs

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elephant in the room

Someone needs to tell the blogosphere - gently - that Hackett's very unlikely to win, but that it's great he's making a showing anyway.

by SocialNetworker 2005-07-22 08:33AM | 0 recs

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Re: elephant in the room

Good idea. Why hasn't anybody thought of that?!!

by ignatzmouse 2005-07-22 09:03AM | 0 recs

4a2fab88-ed3b-47a4-8f14-3ec8a24504ac_normal

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Re: elephant in the room

Yea, a post needs to be run explaining this, but I haven't gotten around to it. I mean, if Hackett gets above 40% in the CD, it's one hell of a victory. I can't even imagine him winning, but I guess it's possible. It would surely shock the world in DC.

by Jerome Armstrong 2005-07-22 07:16PM | 0 recs

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Re: elephant in the room

Actually I was being sarcastic.

We've been hearing that since May, including such blog luminaries as Kos. On the right it has become their rallying cry since they haven't been able to articulate a reason to support their candidate.

We've heard is, so what. What values does it bring to the table? Right now we are focused on fighting this thing as hard and as smart as we can. PERIOD.

As Paul Hackett would say: Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

by ignatzmouse 2005-07-23 06:01AM | 0 recs

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Re: elephant in the room

Remember Dean's strategy: show up every precinct in all 50 states. Yes its one of the reddest districts in the country, but we're still gonna fight. Plus, with all the problems the Ohio GOP has had, this is going to be a fairly competitive race. Even if Hackett doesnt win, a good showing in a district where we normally lose by about 40% sends a message to Republicans that Dems will be a force in the '06 midterms.

by AC4508 2005-07-22 10:07AM | 0 recs

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Any hard information on this?

Recent polls?

Aren't the Ohio scandals having some effect?

by Thresholder 2005-07-22 11:29AM | 0 recs

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I wasn't aware of it till an article in

the American Prospect informed me, but the limit for donations is much higher for national committees than it is for candidates. This is the only part of the Democratic fundraising cycle that worries me - until we can reform campaign finance, big donors are a necessary evil, but they're not giving right now. I doubt that we'll ever round up enough small-donors to compete with the RNC's rolodex.

by PantherDem 2005-07-22 09:32AM | 0 recs

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The trend is good but the other elephant...

...in the room is that the absolute numbers still suck. Down nearly 3-1 in cash on hand?

The small donor/large donor thing is a false dichotomy. For the Dems to compete financially, we need an "all donor" approach.

As for Paul Hackett, it's entirely probably that he will lose. The question is by what margin. A tighter than expected race can be a good building block for the future. This is the kind of race, far more than the Utah 2006 Senate race, where we need to keep the pressure on and pull off the occasional upset where before we weren't even competing, forcing the GOP to defend more territory with seats sliding to GOP-lean from GOP-safe. The odds of winning may be only 1 in 4 but if you don't compete they're 0 in 4.

by InigoMontoya 2005-07-22 10:08AM | 0 recs

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You always need a candidate

Because if the GOPer candidates craps out (conviction, illness, scandal) after the filing deadlines are over, you get a cakewalk race.

But, if you don't build up an opponent, then GOP just subs a person and life goes on for them.

Norm Coleman's victory is a classic example. Coleman didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of beating Wellstone. Then Wellstone is killed, and the GOP gets a Senate seat.

Now, admittedly, Senate seats are almost always contested. But, if you take that mentality to the House, and to state races, you're going to vulture a few wins.

by jcjcjc 2005-07-22 10:44AM | 0 recs

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glad

Glad my $50 was a small part of it

trillin
http://www.mnleftyliberal.blogspot.com

by trillin 2005-07-22 11:27AM | 0 recs

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Another point to remember.

Just a word building on all the posts in this thread saying that the fight is worth making.

Remember this. The winner of this election only has 6-8 months before having to run again.

If Hackett makes inroads this time, then he is positioned to get closer to beating her when he gets to take her on again in '06. His increasing name reconition and profile will give him stature the second time around.

And it isn't even a full election cycle away!

by Thresholder 2005-07-22 11:31AM | 0 recs

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Re: Another point to remember.

Unfortunately Hackett has said he'll re-up with the Marines if he loses this election.

He is the real deal. Maybe he can run from Iraq?

But even more importantly then that, this race is going to help build the infrastructure needed to take back Ohio in '06 and '08. Blood-red Republicans are finding out that Democrats can be patriotic warriors too. And a new bunch of activists in the second are learning how to run a ground campaign. Maybe it means 5,000 more votes for the next Senate candidate. I'll take it.

by dantheman 2005-07-22 12:37PM | 0 recs

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Why so much debt?

$4.6 million? That's gotta be generating a lot of interest that they could avoid. I realize if they paid it all off, they'd be taking a 14% hit on cash on hand, but they could pay at least a good portion of that if they have $32 million in the bank.

by claw 2005-07-22 07:24PM | 0 recs

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I always wonder the same

If you have COH, why do you have debt???

Maybe someone smarter will explain it for us...

by teknofyl 2005-07-23 07:08AM | 0 recs

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Re: I always wonder the same

If its debt you don't have to pay back right away, most campaigns would rather keep the cash available in case it is needed for a response ad/last minute travel/whatever.

Same reason A lto of people have car loans and money in savings at the same time.

by dantheman 2005-07-25 01:28PM | 0 recs

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Perhaps the MyDD

community could write a group LTE to the New York Times. In the LTE we could point out the difference in donations from large and small donors. We could then ask whether Democratic large donors are willing to give up their principles (equality, equity, and a better future) simply because more people have become active in their party. Ask them to continue giving to the Democratic Party and to join with the small donors in taking back our country.

by Robert P 2005-07-23 02:53AM | 0 recs