Early Money = Movement Power: Waiting To Donate Is A Gift To The Establishment, Whether GOP Or DCCC
- Howie Klein
- 2 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Blue America has been helping progressive candidates raise money since 2006. So far this is the least productive cycle we’ve ever had— even though the need is the most apparent and dire. It's frustrating but the fact of the matter is that too many progressive campaigns die quietly before they ever get off the ground— not because the ideas were weak, but because the support came too late. While big corporate PACs and D.C. insiders write six-figure checks without blinking, grassroots candidates rely on something potentially more powerful— and more precarious: you and me.
The truth that not enough people understand or think about is that every dollar you contribute now is worth many times more than a dollar sent a week before Election Day, which is, alas, when most of the contributions come in!
Think of it like this: early money isn’t just money— it’s oxygen. It’s what allows insurgent candidates— and our candidates are virtually always insurgent candidates— to open a field office, hire a single staffer, run digital ads to introduce themselves and be taken seriously by the press, the party and potential allies. It’s what lets a progressive take a shot at flipping a red district— or, more likely, taking on a corrupt corporate Democrat in a primary. Let’s not kid ourselves about how we got here. The DCCC and DSCC— drunk on consultant cash, Beltway groupthink and their own revolving door careers— have spent cycle after cycle propping up GOP-lite candidates who stand for nothing and inspire no one. Their whole strategy hinges on fear and the lesser-of-two-evils pitch, and that’s not how you build durable majorities. It’s how you demoralize the base and hand power back to the very extremists we’re supposed to be fighting. If we want to win— and govern— with vision and guts, we need to stop waiting for their permission. Early grassroots donations let us back real progressives before the party machine crushes them in the primaries. We can’t wait until the last minute and hope someone brave made it through. We have to make sure they do.
And if we wait too long, that shot vanishes. Research backs this up. Back in 1993, Robert Biersack from the Federal Election Commission, with professors Paul Herrnson and Clyde Wilcox found that “early money is more valuable than money raised late in the campaign, because it increases the success of later fund raising. We find that early fund raising by House challengers does stimulate later receipts, especially for those who lack experience in elected office. For these candidates, early money from any source improves later fund raising from all sources.” Early individual donations are the best predictor of whether candidates get institutional support later on. You’re literally helping prove a candidate’s viability before anyone else even picks up the phone.
I found a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research showing that small donors aren’t giving randomly— they’re giving to shape outcomes. It's what Blue America has always been all about. Early giving does more than fund— it builds the narrative of a winning campaign. “The role of campaign contributions in elections is a central issue in democracies. Yet both popular and academic discussions have mostly concentrated on large donors, despite the fact that small donors account for a large fraction of total contributions. In the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign for instance, the Federal Election Commission reported that out of a total campaign spending of about $1.3 billion for the main candidates, small contributions (less than $200 each) added up to $621 million, and those between $200 and $1,000 to another $243 million. The numbers tilted even further towards small contributions in the 2016 presidential race: Bernie Sanders, for example, raised 202 million dollars from small contributions, out of a total campaign budget of 223 million, while Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump also each received more than 2 million from small donors.”
A study of campaign data called Complex Contagion of Campaign Donations revealed that donations are contagious. When people give early— especially from diverse networks— others follow. Momentum spreads. That only happens when the first donors step up. Research from the crowdfunding world confirms it: early support increases success rates drastically. On Kickstarter, early backers make the difference between failure and going viral. Same in politics. The moment when it looks like a campaign might “take off?” That’s you— us. That’s early donors.
Think of it this way: every establishment Democrat has a Rolodex of consultants, lobbyists, and corporate CEOs who will line up to keep them in power. But progressive candidates? They literally only have us— and, most of the time, they have us early or not at all. If we wait until it’s obvious who’s going to win, we’ve already lost. We’ve let consultants dictate who’s “serious” and who isn’t. We’ve let Wall Street and Silicon Valley decide what kind of Democrats we’re allowed to have.
If you’re reading DWT, I know you believe in Medicare for All… I know you believe in climate justice… I know you believe in reproductive freedom, racial equity, student debt relief and stopping endless war… I don’t know how to say this better but, please put your money where your heart is— without waiting. Help flip Congress here.
Like I said, we’ve been backing grassroots candidates for nearly 20 years— often before anyone else would take their calls. We helped elect AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Jamaal Bowman, Katie Porter, Chris Murphy, Summer Lee, Pramila Jayapal, Alan Grayson, Bernie when he jumped from the House to the Senate… and many others when no one thought they had a chance. They didn’t win because people waited. They won because people like us gave early. When it mattered most. Remember, ActBlue revolutionized early fundraising with frictionless, recurring gifts. One-click tools institutionalized the power of small-dollar solicitations and in crowded primaries— and especially in fights against establishment shills— early fundraising is often the difference between being taken seriously or written off by press, donors, and voters alike.
If you’d like to help build the next wave of progressive leadership, please don’t wait for the DCCC. Don’t wait for MSNBC. Don’t wait for permission. Make your move now.
Your early gift could be the one that gets a campaign off the ground. It could be the reason a candidate stays in the race. So… give now; give boldly. And give like democracy depends on it— because this time, it just might. This past week, we introduced an exceptional young progressive in the San Joaquin Valley, Randy Villegas. The response was disheartening. Jacquie told me it would have been more effective if I had written that if Dems want to take back the House, the Central Valley is ground zero. David Valadao, a conservative Republican, keeps winning here despite the district voting for Biden by over 12 points. Why? Because establishment Democrats have backed weak candidates, leaving working families behind. Randy isn’t a career politician— he’s a proud son of the Valley, a New Deal progressive with a vision to fight for working families who’ve been forgotten by the powers that be.”
Year after year, NPR listeners seem to respond to matching offers; it must work. I know that when these offers are in Trump's e-mails or come from the two corrupt DC parties, they're bullshit and there is no match. But I just got a $700 refund from the California Franchise Tax Board and I'll use that as a match for whichever Blue America candidate— from any of the 5 ActBlue links in this post— gets the most money by tomorrow (Thursday) at noon. Meanwhile, consider this message to Republicans in Congress from a former Republican:
