Small donors come up big for GOP candidates
For the first time in a decade, Republican candidates for Congress are raising more than Democrats from small donors.
GOP candidates for the House and Senate this year have raised $70 million from small donors, compared with $44 million brought in by Democratic candidates, according to a Washington Post analysis of campaign finance data.
The trend is another sign that Republicans have turned their political momentum into money. Reports covering the first quarter had shown that GOP candidates were closing the gap or exceeding Democrats in key races and that corporations have started to shift behind the party.
The giving also fits a pattern in which small contributors loyal to the opposition are more motivated to give while their party is out of power. The last time Republicans received more small donations than Democrats was during the 1998 midterms, when Democrat Bill Clinton held the presidency...
In his campaign for the White House two years ago, Barack Obama changed the way money was raised by relying on legions of small donors. Nearly half of his record-setting war chest of $750 million was raised from donors giving less than $200 at a time.
This year, it is Republican candidates who have ridden a wave of support from motivated contributors, including thousands of tea party members, financial reports show. GOP candidates have raised 16 percent of their money from small donors, compared with 10 percent among Democratic candidates.
Unlike individual candidates, the Republican National Committee and other party committees have used mail solicitations to consistently bring in more money from small donors than their Democratic counterparts. The RNC's reliance on small donors has increased this cycle, with many large donors choosing not to give to party headquarters after controversies over its leadership...
The surge in small donations also helped Republican Scott Brown in January in his victory in a Massachusetts senatorial special election, which spurred GOP momentum heading into the campaign year. Brown raised $8.3 million in small contributions, representing more than half of his total.
Now remember, this is an anti-incumbent tide, not anti-leftist tide....right....
The increase in small-dollar support is not all good news for the party: Candidates getting small contributions do not always deliver the same message as party leaders.
Tea party favorite Rand Paul, for example, who won the GOP Kentucky Senate primary last week, is an ideological libertarian who has drawn 59 percent of his money from donors giving less than $200 at a time. He soundly defeated the establishment candidate backed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.)...
In other words Washington Puke, the people of this country are supporting true conservatives, not RINOs who will make deals with the leftists and stab the people who put them there in the back.
Now this is interesting...one can only hope!
...One GOP candidate with grass-roots support, Californian Dana Walsh, is attempting something considered highly unlikely, unseating House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That hasn't stopped Walsh from pulling in $1.3 million in small checks, 90 percent of her total fundraising...
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