How Are Democrats Really Doing in the Fundraising Battle?

Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via ZUMA

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

Here’s a headline in the Washington Post this morning:

Republican National Committee has huge financial edge heading into 2018 midterms

I had a point I thought I wanted to make about this, but then I clicked the link and read the story:

The RNC, the GOP House and Senate party committees and the two main Republican congressional super PACs together raised nearly $289 million in 2017.

….The Democratic National Committee trailed far behind its Republican counterpart, raising $64.5 million in 2017. But the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last year both outraised their respective GOP counterparts, the National Republican Senate Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. In total, the three Democratic Party committees and two main Democratic congressional super PACs raised about $258 million in 2017, filings show.

The Republican groups have raised 12 percent more than the Democratic groups. That’s a huge financial edge?

Now, it’s true that the RNC alone has massively outraised the DNC alone. So I suppose I’ll go ahead and make my point anyway: I assume that a big reason for this is that the DNC has faced a sustained backlash from the Democratic Party base, which simply doesn’t trust the DNC to support progressive candidates. Maybe this is fair, maybe it’s not. It’s not an area of politics that I follow very closely. But the bottom line is that this money hasn’t just disappeared. Instead of donating to the DNC, a lot of Democratic donors are giving their money either directly to candidates or to other progressive groups.

There’s probably an interesting story to be written about that, but it would take some work. I’d be a lot more interested in reading it, though.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate