With the election over, and the fears of Republicans partially realized, the party’s worry has shifted to the “green wave:” $39.67 here, $39.67 there.
That’s the average donation to ActBlue, the online fundraising hub used by more than 90 percent of Democrats. Buoyed by ActBlue, more than 100 Democratic candidates outraised their Republican counterparts in hotly contested congressional races.
That kind of uniformity and heft in small-dollar donations — typically defined as $200 or less — was missing on the Republican side, a costly shortcoming that the party is now confronting after losing 40 seats, and control of the House, to Democrats.
“ActBlue is something we’re going to have to deal with,” the Republican National chairwoman, Ronna Romney McDaniel, said recently.
Republicans still receive streams of money from superpacs financed by big donors like casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and through individual donors who send larger amounts. And the Republican National Committee exceeded the Democratic National Committee in fundraising in the cycle nearly 2-to-1. In addition, President Donald Trump’s campaign is known for its prolific fundraising
But individual Democratic candidates for House and Senate seats outraised their Republican counterparts overall, $1.4 billion to $880 million and a significant portion of the difference can be attributed to small donations whose impact has increased significantly.
Overall, Democratic candidates in the general election collected nearly $296 million in small donations, more than three times the $85 million collected by Republicans. As Democrats have increasingly excelled in that area, aided by ActBlue, Republicans have come to realize that those little donations, repeated over and over again, add up to big numbers.
“We simply can’t go to the next election cycle as underfunded as we were compared to the Democratic candidates in the target races,” Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist, said in an interview. “We’ve got to figure out a way to even out that funding situation.”
But Republicans cannot simply copy the Democratic model. While ActBlue is a nonprofit, Republican efforts at collecting small-dollar donations are fragmented among for-profit processing vendors. There are more than a half-dozen such vendors servicing Republican candidates and committees. And there is big money to be made from their portion of the processing fees, typically around 4 percent, some of which goes to banks and credit card companies.
The companies’ makeup reflects the small world of online political fundraising and the connections between some vendors and powerful forces within the party, which could complicate efforts to streamline and centralize the system.
Among the three main players, for instance, one has ties to the Republican National Committee and counts Trump’s campaign as a client. A principle in another company is the brother of the digital director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee; and the founder of the third, a former congressional candidate himself, processes donations for most of the state parties as well as many influential members of Congress.
In a tweet that highlighted how competing interests and fiefs could impede a solution, one Republican consultant, Tim Cameron, posted a photo of actor Mel Gibson and a line from his movie Braveheart: “Unite the Clans.”
That was in response to a tweet in October from Gerrit Lansing, founder of one of the top Republican processing vendors, Revv. He called ActBlue the “single largest advantage” of the Democrats, touting his company as a solution.
There are efforts at the national party level to streamline funding. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, has initiated discussions about a possible merger or information-sharing arrangement among vendors.
Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff for McConnell who is advising his office on the issue, contacted several companies recently to discuss a solution, the vendors said.
Several Republican consultants and fundraising experts, though, warned that fixing the operational bugs won’t completely solve the problem.
“I think a lot of it is historical legacy, where Republicans traditionally have relied on a smaller number of larger donors,” said David Nickerson, who teaches political science at Temple University. Democrats have built a tradition of small-dollar donation, he said. “It has become part of the culture.”
There is some evidence that is beginning to change, with Trump’s populist appeal energizing Republican small donors. Enthusiasm at the presidential level, though, has not transferred to individual Senate and House Republican candidates, who have fallen way behind Democrats.
“Trump sucks up all the oxygen. People are giving to Trump and now they’re done,” said Guy Short, vice president of fundraising for Campaign Solutions, another significant player in the industry. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to translate that down the ballot.”
The fundraising gap was particularly notable in close and hotly contested races, with Democrats making inroads into previously conservative districts and suburban areas, a grim sign for Republicans.
In Virginia, for example, Democratic challenger Abigail Spanberger collected more than $1.5 million from small donors — double the total for the Republican incumbent, Dave Brat, who lost his seat. In Illinois, Lauren Underwood ousted the incumbent Republican Randy Hultgren from his district near Chicago after collecting nearly $1.2 million from small donors, 15 times more than Hultgren. And in Oklahoma City, Kendra Horn defeated incumbent Republican Steve Russell after collecting 10 times more from small donors.
ActBlue said it helped raise $1.6 billion in the 2017-18 election cycle, including money it collects for interest groups and state candidates. The average donation was $39.67.
In House races, the organization said, more than half the money from individual contributors to Democratic candidates was raised through ActBlue.
The site’s influence and fundraising have grown exponentially in the past several years, aided by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ appeal to small donors in 2016 and his campaign’s decision to use ActBlue. The service also collects a fee that it uses to pay banks and credit-card companies, and rolls the rest back into operations.
In addition to providing Democratic donors with a one-stop site, ActBlue allows them to store their credit card numbers and, with one click, donate to virtually any Democratic candidate or liberal cause through a process called ActBlue Express, which the group says has 5.8 million users.
“Right now as a Republican donor, you have to go to multiple websites,” said Mackowiak, the strategist. “If you have someone who is motivated for one reason or another to give, you want that person to be able to contribute to as many races as possible.”
Holmes, the former aide to McConnell, suggested that industry players might consolidate or forge a sharing arrangement to make donations easier. But several Republicans said they would not support the party picking one vendor as a central clearinghouse for donations, calling it antithetical to Republican philosophy.
Instead, an agreement might work like this: A visitor to McConnell’s campaign site clicks to make a donation, which is processed by Anedot, a Dallas-based company owned by Paul Dietzel, a 2014 Republican congressional candidate, that provides services to McConnell and the campaigns of other Republicans.
The donation is processed, with Anedot collecting the fee. The site would then ask the donor’s permission to share his name and credit card information with other GOP fundraising vendors.
When that donor decides to send money to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the system would recognize him and quickly process the information — much in the same way that ActBlue Express works — even though NRCC donations are processed through another vendor, Victory Passport.
Still, this kind of workaround illustrates the challenges Republicans face in unifying their donation system.
Lansing, the founder of Revv, said it would be technologically difficult to share information among the three most frequently used systems because two of them — Revv and Victory Passport — are built on top of Stripe, the large payments platform company, while Anedot is a stand-alone system.
All of which makes ActBlue’s uniform processing operation look more appealing.
Matt Gorman, communications director for the NRCC, said the committee has been reviewing small-dollar donations for more than a year, focusing on ActBlue.
“We’re reviewing its practices, how they go about their business, where the money goes, how they get their money and how we can bring some of the practices we find helpful to the Republican side,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.