Democrats Just Announced They’re Off to a Record-Setting Fundraising Start to 2021

It’s a good sign that donor enthusiasm is high at the start of the Biden administration.

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

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The Democratic National Committee said Saturday that it’s off to a record-setting year for fundraising, marking a dramatic turnaround from where Democrats were four years ago. According to filings it made with the Federal Election Commission, the DNC fundraised $8.5 million in February and $18.4 million since the beginning of the year, which is a blistering start for the Democrats in a non-presidential election year. That’s a good sign that donor enthusiasm, and in particular from the grassroots of the party, has carried through the opening days of President Joe Biden’s administration as his agenda begins to unfold.

According to the DNC, 67 percent of the funds it raised came from small donors, meaning people who gave $200 or less. These types of donors are a huge prize for political fundraisers, not only because if they turn out in bulk they can quickly generate huge sums, but also because they represent a vote of support and a sign of active enthusiasm from the party’s base.

That said, the Republican National Committee also had a strong February—in fact, the RNC out-raised the DNC for the month of February, pulling in $9.3 million, and had an even higher proportion of individual donations coming from small donors, about 72 percent. And the Republicans reported having nearly twice as much money on hand—$83.9 million—as the Democrats did.

The GOP numbers were a bit of a turnaround, too: In the first two months of the year the RNC had only raised $16.5 million from donors, falling behind the Democrats. That kind of fundraising stumble is something, even if the Republicans still have an upper hand overall. For years, and particularly in the Trump era when the former president proved to be such a powerful fundraiser, the DNC has frequently trailed the RNC’s totals (the DNC was out-raised by the RNC by $400 million in 2020). And, four years ago, the DNC was anything but competitive with the RNC in terms of fundraising.

In fact, at the beginning of March 2017, with Democrats still reeling from Trump’s inauguration and his administration moving quickly to shatter many of Washington’s norms on immigration, trade and ethics, the DNC reported having just $10.2 million in cash on hand and another $2.7 million in debt to pay down. Despite liberal outrage at Trump’s actions, the DNC had managed to raise just $5.5 million that February, about half of what the Republicans had pulled in. 

Another key difference between the two parties—and another point of potential optimism for the Democrats—is that since the February fundraising period has ended, Trump has launched a turf war with the RNC over the use of his name and likeness for fundraising. Despite a nasty cease-and-desist letter, the party continued to use the former president’s name to raise money, and he will likely cooperate with at least some of the GOP’s fundraising priorities in coming months. But it’s going to be a much bumpier ride than Democrats will have with Biden as their party standard.

 

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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