This is part 6 of our look back on our fundraising and GOTV efforts in 2022.
It’s A Wrap! The Rest of Our Candidate Fundraising.
Let’s talk about the remaining candidate-related fundraising efforts.
A bit of background
We’ve already talked about our efforts to raise money in the five critical swing states where we directed the vast majority of our efforts: Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. We’ve also discussed the 19 winnable House races in purple districts covered in the previous post.
As you surely know, most of our fundraising this cycle (roughly 80%) was focused on boots on the ground organizations in critical swing states. The comments on our “look back” fundraising threads reflect that we all seem to generally agree with the emphasis on boots on the ground, with a side order of strategic donations to candidates. So, again, we’ve targeted traditionally overlooked races where we can make a difference, where a boost toward the end can help a candidate who is close, but struggling, and where that difference would have nationwide consequences.
This post will address the remaining fundraising – with, or course, some overlap with previous discussions.
U.S. Senate
We mostly stayed out of the big money, well-funded Senate races. With a couple of exceptions. Incumbent Senator Catherine Masto-Cortez in Nevada was in trouble. And the national party appeared to be paying insufficient attention to this potential loss. We did a flash fundraiser that quickly raised $5,963 for the Senator in the waning days of the campaign. She won, but by only 1%.
In Georgia, we mostly focused our efforts on turnout organizations (Worker Power and Four Directions), but we also put up a thermometer for people who wanted to donate directly to the candidate for the runoff. We raised $7,400 directly for Senator Warnock’s campaign. Did you hear that he won?
Secretaries of State
Historically, the Republicans have done local races better than we have. This cycle, Trump supported election denying candidates in critical states, most of whom openly threatened to refuse to certify Democratic victories. We raised $14,311, the bulk of which ($13,173) went to the critical races in Arizona and Nevada, including a flash fundraiser for Cisco Aguilar in NV. Only one of Trump’s election-denying Secretary of State candidates – in Indiana – survived the primaries or generals. Thanks to those wins, no one is going to “find” a few thousand votes in AZ or NV in 2024!
Attorneys General
This is also a state-wide office with potential nation-wide importance. AGs have the responsibility to enforce various laws, including election-related legislation and legislative assaults on reproductive freedom. Plus, Republican AGs routinely join together to prosecute regressive and harmful litigation on environmental issues, Obamacare, voting rights, etc. We raised $12,135 for AGs in four of our five target states: NV, GA, WI and AZ (the Michigan AG was in no real danger).
We also included Texas AG candidate Rochelle Garza in the thermometer. This was an investment in a promising future candidate – and someone who was giving the odious Ken Paxton a run for his money. Our candidates in AZ, NV and WI won. In Arizona in particular, AG Kris Mayes won by the narrowest of margins. Our $5,054 directed her way had to have helped!
Governors
We largely stayed out of the Governor’s races, even in our five targeted states. Still, we raised $25,820 for the Governors. We did a flash-fundraiser for Charlie Crist in Florida that raised over $9,000. At the time, he had just won the primary, and we thought a boost right out of the gate might give him a fighting chance against DeSatan. Alas, Democratic turnout ultimately cratered in Florida, especially among the young (a drop of 38% from the last midterm). But I don’t think any of us felt we could stand by and let DeSantis coast to victory without at least trying to cut into his margins. No regrets.
We also did a flash-fundraiser for Maine Governor Janet Mills. Janet wasn’t on our watchlist until MomSense alerted us to a last-minute dark money dump by the Republicans, who used that money to spread vicious lies about Mills. We raised over $8,000 for her in just a few hours. She won. She won by a big enough margin that she likely would have won without that. I like to think that we made a difference anyway, because in those first few hours of grave worry that the hideous attacks with dark money might derail her chances, they could surely see our $8,250 rolling in, donation by donation, as an indication that not everyone was falling for the lies. That surely added a spring in their step as they fought back against the lies. I like to think so, anyway.
The rest of the money was spent in Arizona (we won) and Nevada (we lost, which was disappointing, but at least the Republican wasn’t an election denier).
State Supreme Courts
We raised $10,147 for State Supreme Court races in three states – Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina (with most of it going to three Ohio candidates). Ohio is frustrating. Coming into the election, the Republicans held a 4-3 majority on the State Supreme Court. Three of the four Republican seats were up for election. A Democratic majority could potentially strike down gerrymandered maps and prevent the worst of the anti-choice measures from being enforced. Alas, the Republicans won all three. Our modest contributions helped finance a Michigan blue wave (more on the “Michigan miracle” and the spike in turnout among women and younger voters in a future post).
Down-Ballot Races in Swing Districts in Swing States
This was perhaps our most creative and potentially impactful fundraising efforts: identifying local races with nationwide impact. Blue Guitarist identified local races in swing districts in swing states that could potentially 1) prevent the Republicans from obtaining a super-majority in states with a Democratic Governor; 2) flip a swing state legislature from red to blue; and/or 3) drive turnout in a local purple district that would help state-wide candidates. We raised $18,924 for a total of 22 down-ballot races in 6 states: PA (8), AZ (6), OH (3), NC (2), FL (2), and NV (1).
This strategy has the potential for long-term impact, but it’s challenging to evaluate whether and how our contributions may have made a difference. I think we will want to try this again for 2024, with an eye toward how we can evaluate success. Or, if evaluating success is really tough, we might want to view this as an investment in the future, even if we can’t measure tangible results.
Looking Ahead
In future posts, as we look ahead to the next cycle, we can talk about the swing district/swing state concept as well as the flash-fundraising concept, which in its purest form rescued Four Directions on election day during an unexpected snowstorm in Reno.
Overall, we did very well this cycle, and maybe we can do even better in 2024, with the experience from this cycle under our belt!
Again, great job everyone.
We want to say thank you to everyone who donated. Thank you to every Balloon Juice Angel, and to our repeat Angels! Thank you to MomSense who set the angels in motion with an offer to match ten $10 donations with her $100, and thank you to everyone who contributed in other ways.
Who says one person can’t make a difference? All of us working together? I think we made some pretty big waves! Together.
