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Democrats are more likely to have donated to a political campaign than Republicans, according to the latest NBC News poll, underscoring Democrats’ fundraising advantage in recent elections.
Overall, 30% of registered voters say they have donated to campaign in the past two years. That includes 37% of rank-and-file Democrats, 26% of Republicans and 22% of independents. Looking at the 2024 presidential vote through that lens, President Joe Biden takes 59% of past donors' votes against former President Donald Trump and 58% in a matchup against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“It speaks to the new era we’re in where the small-money Democrats are just swamping the small-money Republicans,” said GOP pollster BIll McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted the survey along with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates.
The new data comes as the second fundraising quarter ended Friday, with campaigns set to file their latest fundraising reports to the Federal Election Commission by July 15. Those reports will show whether Democrats are continuing to dominate grassroots, small-dollar fundraising that has skyrocketed since former President Donald Trump was elected in 2016.
Taryn Rosenkranz of New Blue Interactive, a Democratic digital fundraising firm, described the fundraising boost as the “Trump bump.”
“More folks who had probably never given a gift before got up, got involved and it was easy for them to do it,” she said, noting the ease through which Democratic donors can use ActBlue, their preferred online fundraising platform.
Donors gave $4.3 billion through ActBlue in the 2020 election cycle, as well as $2.2 billion in the 2022 midterms, according to FEC reports. ActBlue's GOP counterpart, WinRed, reported $2.2 billion in 2020 and $1.8 billion in 2022.
The platforms do not file fundraising reports for the current election cycle until the end of July. But ActBlue announced last year that more than 7.4 million unique donors used the platform during the midterm elections, which was nearly three times more than the 2.5 million donors who used WinRed in the 2022 cycle.
"We’re trying to narrow that gap,” said Republican digital strategist Eric Wilson. “It’s a huge strategic imperative for the Republican Party.”
Wilson noted ActBlue has been operating far longer than WinRed, which launched in 2019, a full 15 years after ActBlue's 2004 launch. He also pointed to the Democratic National Committee’s debate requirements in 2020 that set a minimum threshold for donors as key to growing the Democratic donor base.
Wilson hopes similar requirements for the upcoming GOP debates could bring in new Republican donors. The Republican National Committee announced last month that candidates hoping to make the debate stage must have contributions from at least 40,000 individual donors.
For campaigns, convincing a donor to make that first contribution can unlock future funds. Rosenkranz said past donors are “more likely to give” again.
Wilson agreed, noting, ”They’re not only likely to donate to that campaign again, they’re also likely to donate to other candidates … Just like we see with someone who votes regularly [and] is likely going to vote again, someone who donates is likely going to donate again.”
The NBC News poll was conducted June 16-20, and included 1,000 registered voters — 831 of whom were reached by cellphone — and has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.