The Republicans’ small donor base has shrunk in recent years, leaving the party more dependent on a small group of wealthy megadonors for support.
The GOP has enjoyed a financial advantage all year thanks to a relatively small group of big donors who funded super PACs – Elon Musk alone did so. donated nearly half a billion dollars this cycle. But the campaigns themselves have brought in relatively little, and there’s one big reason: other than the president. Donald Trump which is still the party’s biggest fundraiser, Republicans still haven’t figured out how to raise money online.
New campaign finance filings reveal just how deep the problem runs. While Republicans have long struggled to grow their local donor base, they have taken a turn in the wrong direction in recent years. The number of federal donors giving through WinRed, the GOP’s main online fundraising platform, is declining, with about 1.5 million donors so far this cycle, compared to 2.2 million at the same time in 2022. Meanwhile, the number of donors increased by about a third on ActBlue, from 4.9 million to about 6.6 million.
The contrast is striking: a single Democratic candidate, James Talarico in Texas, had about the same number of donors on ActBlue this cycle as all Republican candidates and committees combined on WinRed, according to a POLITICO analysis of ActBlue and WinRed reports submitted to the Federal Election Commission.
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