How Are Democrats Really Doing in the Fundraising Battle?

Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via ZUMA

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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.

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Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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