Four years ago, at the end of February 2020, I had raised a total of just over $200,000 for Democrats up & down the ballot, broken out as follows;
- U.S. Senate Seats: $118,340 (59.0%)
- U.S. House Seats: $59,575 (29.7%)
- State Execs (Gov/AG/SoS): $942 (0.5%)
- State Legislative Seats: $20,466 (10.2%)
- Biden/other POTUS: $1,367 (0.7%)
- Other: n/a (0.0%)
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TOTAL: $200,690
So how am I doing this year by comparison?
- U.S. Senate Seats: $52,544 (18.4%)
- U.S. House Seats: $50,691 (17.8%)
- State Execs (Gov/AG/SoS): $14,683 (5.1%)
- State Legislative Seats: $153,775 (53.9%)
- President Biden: $2,791 (1.0%)
- Voters of Tomorrow/Other: $10,680 (3.7%)
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TOTAL: $285,164
So far I've raised 42% more than at the same point four years ago...but the breakout is dramatically different.
Here's what the breakout looks like side by side:
As you can see, while 2020 was all about retaking the U.S. Senate, this time around I'm putting a much greater emphasis on STATE LEGISLATURES, which also includes state Democratic Parties. I've also been including Voters of Tomorrow Action on most of my fundraising pages this cycle ("Other") although I'm phasing that out as each state's filing deadline and/or primary passes & more actual Democratic nominees are locked in.
Here's what it looks like another way:
The most dramatic difference is the huge increase in state legislative race donations--over 7.5x as much so far vs the same point last cycle! Similarly, state executive race fundraising (Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State) is way up as well (15x as much, although that's compared against almost nothing in 2020).
On the flip side, the dramatic drop in Senate fundraising is somewhat concerning, but even there it's not as bad as it looks...because a much greater portion of the donations so far have been going to the competitive Senate races as opposed to the long shot races.
In 2020, there were a dozen Senate races which were generally considered up for grabs: AZ, CO, GA (x2), IA, ME, MI, MN, MO, NH, NM & NC. There were another 16 Republican-held seats which were basically unflippable by Dems, but which I listed on the fundraising page in order to encourage party building/etc.
This year there's only 10 Senate seats I consider competitive (or at least potentially competitive): AZ, FL, MI, MT, NV, NJ, OH, PA, TX & WI. There's another ten GOP seats which are likely pipe dreams but again, you never know.
As of February 2020, Senate donations were split nearly evenly between the two (52% / 48%). As of today this cycle, however, over 84% of the Senate funds I've raised have gone to one of those ten competitive races, with just 16% going to the other ten long shots combined. As a result, while my total Senate fundraising is down 56%, for competitive seats it's only down 28%. Still not ideal, of course, but much better.
Here's what the fundraising project has looked like over time for both cycles. The orange line is how much I actually raised (total) during the 2020 cycle. The dotted blue line is how much I expected to raise this cycle--I was erring on the side of caution, assuming that I'd probably only raise perhaps 2/3 as much this time around given the unique circumstances surrounding the 2020 election.
Instead, so far at least, I've been proven wildly wrong (much to my pleasant surprise!)...so far I've raise 42% more than the same point four years ago!
Obviously this may not last (in fact, there was a significant slowdown in February vs. January), but only time will tell. In the meantime, I'm currently on track to break $300,000 sometime around mid-March.